y/y^ 




MEMORIAL 



iFliOf 







Late U. S. Minister to France. 



A MEMORIAL 



OP 



THE LIFE AND CHARACTER 



OF 



HON. WILLIAM L. DAYTON, 



Late U. S. Minister to France. 



BY JOSEPH P. BRADLEY, ESQ. 



Prepared in coDformity with a Resolution of the New Jersey Historical Society. 



NEWARK, N. J.- 

DAILY ADVERTISER PRINTING HOUSE. 
1875. 

r 



On January 19th, 1865, at a meeting of the New Jersey Histori- 
cal Society, the following preamble and resolutions were adopted: 

Whereas, Since thelast meeting of the Society, the country has been called 
to mourn the loss of its able representative at the Court of Prance, the Hon. 
William L. Dayton, long a member and officer of this Society, a ready and 
cheerful promoter of its objects, and at the time of his departure on his mis- 
sion, one of its Vice Presidents ; therefore 

Resolved^ That this Society has to lament, in the death of the Hon. William 
L. Dayton, the loss of one whose place at the Bar, in the Senate, in the Cab- 
inet, and m the recollections of Jersey men is left vacant, and cannot soon be 
filled. 

Besolved, That we deeply participate in the universal regret at his sudden 
and untimely decease, and that we sincerely sympathize with his family in 
their great and sore bereavement. 

Besolved, That the character and services of Mr. Dayton as a distinguished 
and eminent Jerseyman, long occupying a large space in the public eye, are 
entitled to more tlian a mere passing tribute at the hands of this Society and 
his native State; and that a Committee be appointed to procure, if practicable, 
the preparation of some permanent aud flttiug memorial of his career. 

The Chair appointed as the Committee referred to in the last resolution, 
Messrs. J. P. Bradley, Henry W. G-reen, and Frederick T. Frelinghuysen. 

On the. 18th May, 1865, Mr. Bradley submitted to the Society 
the following paper. 



MEMORIAL. 



William Lewis Dayton, late Minister Plenipotentiary of the 
United States to France, departed this life, suddenly at Paris, on 
the first day of December, 1864. He not only held an eminent 
official position at the time of his death, but he was a distinguished 
citizen of the United States, and a beloved and honored son of New 
Jersey. As such, and as a member of this Society, of long and 
honored standing, it is highly proper that some appropriate memorial 
of his life and services, should be recorded in our proceedings. 

Flis own remarks made in this Society some years ago, are proper 
to remember now. 

The Committee on biographies had made a report expressing some 
disappointment at the little success which had attended their applica- 
tions to the descendants of distinguished Jerseymen for such sketches 
of their lives as the private or family papers might enable them to 
furnish, Mr. Dayton, in a few remarks made on the occasion, al- 
luded to the importance to the State of securing authentic informa- 
tion respecting those whose names and deeds were indissolubly con- 
nected with her history. No people, he said, could expect lo have 
their history written impartially and well by strangers, and not until 
Jersejmien exert themselves more, could they expect to be relieved 
from the injurious efforts of such authorship. Since then, he has 
himself become one of those whose name and deeds are indissolubly 
connected with the history of New Jersey ; and it is the duty of 
this Society, in some way, to preserve a memorial of his career. 

Mr. Dayton was born at Baskingridge, in Somerset County, New 
Jersey, on the 17th day of February, A.D., 1807. He was conse- 
quently, nearl}^ fifty-eight years of age at the time of his death. 
Those fifty-eight years can hardly be surpassed in the world's his- 
tory by any period of equal length in whatever appertains to the 
development of the material interests of society, and the advance- 



4 MEMORIAL OF HON. WILLIAM L. DAYTON. 

ment and elevation of the people. During this period the steam- 
boat, the railroad, the locomotive, the telegraph, the photograph and 
the penny press became powers under whose influence the civilized 
world has made such strides in material and political progress, that 
we seem to live in a new and different era compared with that which 
subsisted at the present centur3^ The questioning and energetic 
spirit of the present age, imparts itself more or less to all who live 
in it. And to self-reliant and powerful minds like that of William 
L. Dayton, it furnishes a stimulus which almost infallibly urges them 
on to distinction and usefulness. 

Mr. Dayton was just twenty years the junior of his distinguished 
fellow townsman, the Hon. Samuel L. Southard, and his mother, 
whose maiden name was Lewis, was a cousin of that distinguished 
Jerseyman. Both of them bore the maternal surname in their own 
name, and quite a remarkable parallel existed between their respec- 
tive careers. Both being natives of Baskingridge, they received their 
early training in its celebrated school, Mr. Southard, under its 
founder. Dr. Finley, and Mr. Dayton under his successor, Dr. Brown- 
lee. Both pursued their more advanced studies in the College of New 
Jersey, at Princeton, Mr. Southard graduating at the age of seven- 
teen, and Mr. Dayton at eighteen. Both were admitted to the bar 
of New Jersey as attorneys at about the same age, Mr. Southard at 
twenty-four, Mr. Dayton at twenty-three, (the latter in the term of 
May, 1830) ; and both took the degree of Counsellor, as soon as 
their three years of probation as attorneys had expired. They both 
moved from their native county to commence the practice of law, 
and were both elected to the State Legislature, from the counties of 
their adoption, Mr. Southard being sent to the House of Assembly 
b}'' the County of Hunterdon, at the age of twenty-eight ; and Mr. 
Dayton to the Legislative Council by the County of Monmouth, at 
the age of thirty ; and both were appointed to the bench of the 
Supreme Court during the first year of their legislative terms. 
They were, afterwards, both elected to the Senate of the United 
States, Mr. Southard at the age of thirty-four, Mi-, Dayton at that of 
thirty-five ; and both were afterwards appointed to tho effice of At- 
torney General of New Jersey. If Mr. Dayton did not, like Mr, 
Southard, become a cabinet minister, he became instead Minister 



MEMORIAL OF HON. WILLIAM L. DAYTON. 3 

Plenipotentiary to one of the first governments of Europe, in diffi- 
cult times, which required the performance of duties quite as arduous 
and responsible. Finally, they both died in the full prime of ma- 
ture life— Mr. Southard at the age of fifty-five, and Mr. Dayton at 
fifty-seven ; and during thgir respective careers both stood out with 
strildng distinctness, as the most marked and eminent men of their 
native State. 

Perhaps Mr. Dayton was sometimes conscious of this singular 
parallelism of destinies; perhaps it often awakened his ambition for 
honorable distinction, and stimulated his naturally sluggish energies 
to loftier exertions, more worthy of his great abilities, than he would 
otherwise have made. Example is a rare preacher ; and nothing so 
tends to create great men in a nation or a community, as to have the 
example of great men to emulate, and their talents to grapple with 
in the struggle of honorable contest. 

His early and rapid success in life, makes us think that he may 
also have been conscious of the shortness of life and of the necessity 
of working well while the day lasts, in order to accomplish any thing 
good or great. He may have felt that what he had to do he must 
do with all his might. This thought is beautifully and impressively 
expressed in his address before the Whig and Cliosophic Societies 
in September, 1843. He then said to the young men of his Alma 
Mater : 

" Wait not for the strength of coming years. Experience asks no delay 
Now, every day and hour, is the time for effort. The intellect of age is surest ; 
but, strange as it may seem, some of the grandest reaches of human thought 
have been the efforts of youth. Sir Isaac Newton has perhaps enlarged the 
sphere of human knowledge beyond all others. Fancy paints him a sage, as 
venerable for years as for wisdom. It is all a fancy sketch. His grandest dis- 
coveries were the efforts of his youth ; he did little in scientific discovery after 
his meridian. Tlie ground-work was laid before he was twenty-three. * * 
The measurement of time by the oscillation of the pendulum was the discov- 
ery of Gallileo before he had attaind his twentieth year. And although not 
maturing till late in life, we find him at the age of twenty-four in the mathe- 
matical chair of Pisa. * * Alexander the Great died in his thirty- 
third year ; and his famed lament, so often used to point a moral, tells what he 
had done. There is another of our own era, who conquered and destroyed 
more than Alexander ever knew. Yet it was in all the freshness of youth that 
he stood at the foot of the Alps and pointed his ill-fed, ill-clad followers to their 
frozen summit. There is a moral sublimity in the unwavering confidence — the 
11 



6 MEMORIAL OF HON. WILLIAM L. DAYTON. 

stern self-relience of this man and his emphatic order, On ! Over mountains 
covered with everlasting snows ; amidst avalanches and glaciers ; through the 
wild gorges between the Alps and the Apenines, self-sustained, and self-rely- 
ing he led his followers on. * * But it is not in the field alone, but 
in the cabinet, that our own era furnishes illustrations in point. Who among 
the statesmen of the old world has left a brighter name than William Pitt ? 
Who in the new than Alexander Hamilton ? Addison had distinguished him- 
self for correctness of style and elegance of diction at the early age of twenty- 
one. Pope's incomparable essay upon criticism was the production of a youth 
scarcely twenty." 

When this was spoken he was already a member of the United 
States Senate, though only thirty-six years of age. Some of his 
friends, disinterested or otherwise, had expressed the fear that his 
progress was too rapid for his own permanent advantage. These 
words of his may be regarded as his own formal defence or apology 
for his early advancement. 

Mr. Dayton's father was not wealthy. Although a man of consid- 
erable character and intelligence, he was a plain mechanic, and had 
to exert himself strenuously to give his children an education — a 
duty which was honorably and faithfully discharged ; two of his sons 
being trained to lue oar, and a third being educated as a physician. 
We are not surprised, therefore, that his son William, after leaving 
College, devoted a portion of his time to teaching school at Pluck- 
amin, as a means of replenishing his resources whilst pursuing his 
professional studies. He studied law in the office of Hon. Peter D. 
Vroom, then residing at Somerville ; but the interruptions to which 
he was subjected delayed his admission to the bar till May term, 
1830, five years alter he had taken his academical degree. The 
general impression made by him at this period was, that his talents 
were less brilliant than solid ; and that by his mental constitution, 
though capable of much energy and power when roused to exertion, 
he was rather indolent and sluggish, than alert and active. No 
doubt the cause of this impression was the fact that Mr. Dayton was 
always more of a thinker than a mere student of books, and like 
Patrick Henry, was making more progress in his studies whilst mus- 
ing with himself along the trout stream, or the fowling range, than 
in the dusty office, surrounded by the more dust}' books. He paid 
sufficient attention to the latter, however, to lay in a sound stock of 



MEMORIAL OF HON. WILLIAM L. DAYTON. 7 

common law learning and legal principles, which he ever wielded 
with readiness and tact in the conduct or consideration of any cause 
in which he was engaged. 

Mr. Dayton never became, or made any pretentions to the charac- 
ter of a legal scholar — a class of lawyers who are often more learned 
than sound, and more knowing than safe. They will tell you about 
all the obscure and recondite cases which have been decided on any 
particular point ; what this judge asserted, and Avhat that judge 
doubted ; and yet be unable themselves to form any sound and defi- 
nite conclusion on the subject — any conclusion for themselves or 
their clients to adopt as a rule. They will still doubt and hesitate, 
and fortify themselves with so many "ifs," and "ands," and "buts," 
that they only "darken counsel by words without knowledge," and 
leave those dependent upon them for advice, in greater doubt and 
distress than before. Or. if they happen to be of a positive disposi- 
tion, ever ready to give their opinion at a breath, they are as apt to 
be wrong as right. 

Great learning and great breadth of reading are not by any means 
to be despised ; and if there is enough power of mental digestion to 
assimilate it, and make it contribute to real knowledge and depth, it 
is a great blessing ; but if it burdens and overloads the brain, the 
reading had better be more limited, and better understood. 

The law is a science of principles, bv which civil society is regu- 
lated and held together, by which right is eliminated and enforced, 
and wrong is detected and punished. Unless these principles are 
drawn from the books which a student reads, and deposited in his 
mind and heart, his much reading will be but a diy and unprofitable 
business. On the contrary, if these principles are discovered be- 
neath the dr}^ husks of the text books and reports, if they are ex- 
tracted, mastered and retained, it will not be so much the number 
of the books studied, as the success with which this digesting and 
assimilating process is pursued in studying them, which will make 
the great and successful lawyer. 

It is precisely in this respect that Mr. Dayton was a profitable and 
successful student of the law. He had a large mind and strong 
common sense, which always led him instinctively to search for and 
seize the leading and governing principle which underlay a book or 



8 MEMORIAL OF HON. WILLIAM L. DAYTON. 

case, studied or referred to, or a cause to be argued or tried. This 
trait characterized his reading and studies whilst a student at law, 
and his practice as a lawyer after he came to the bar. In the argu- 
ment of his causes he alwaj's stood upon some broad general prin- 
ciple, or fundamental and striking view of his case ; he could not 
stoop to mere technicalities. 

The same characteristics distinguished him as a Judge. There 
was nothing he so much abhorred as to decide a cause on narrow 
precedents or minute technical points. This arose from his breadth 
of mind and great good sense. Strong, sound sense was the basis 
and most marked feature of his intellectual character. 

His estimate of general principles as comprising the vital sub- 
stance of the law, is well expressed in the address to which refer- 
ence has been made. 

"The law," says he, "is a science enlarged in its compass, and noble in its 
objects. It binds the elements of society together, keeping all its discordant 
materials in place. It has no mysteries, no uncertainties under which imposi- 
tion can protect itself. In litigation there is no quackery, no infallible specific. 
Crowds never follow ignorant pretenders to legal knowledge into courts of jus- 
tice to vindicate their civil rights. Notwithstanding that time out of mind, its 
glorious uncertaint}^ has furnished a theme for the wit of the world; there is, 
perhaps, no science apart from mathematical truth, more fixed or certain in its 
principles. I speak not of local laws — of mere statutory provisions, but of 
that great system of principles which constitute the common law, and in which 
the science consists. * * They are something, be it remembered, 
apart from the fact in litigation * * They are a body of principles 

reduced from reason and experience — based upon the soundest morals and 
adapted to the varied wants of organized society. These p7-inciples are fixed, 
and constitute the science. It is to the study of these principles you will assiduously 
devote yourselves. Without labour in mastering, and thought in applying them, 
you can do nothing, literally nothing. Genius alone will be of as little avail as 
powder without lead ; though full of it, you are but a blank cartridge ; you 
may make a great flash and noise, but will send nothing to the mark." 

I quote his words thus fully, because they chime in with the lessons 
of his life, and aid us in representing to our own minds a faithful 
image of his intellectual and moral personality. 

After getting his attorney's license in May, 1830, he concluded to 
leave his native county and settle in Monmouth. He first located 
himself at Middletown Point, where he stayed about two years, and 
then removed to Freehold, the county seat ; and about this period 



MEMORIAL OF HON. WILLIAM L. DAYTON. 9 

was married to Miss Vanderveer, a daughter of Judge Ferdinand 
Vanderveer, of Somerville, who survives her husband. The Mon- 
mouth County courts, especially the circuit for the trial of Su- 
preme Court cases, were at that period, attended by Gen. Wall, 
George Wood, Col. Warren Scott, Chief Justice Green, the late 
James S. Green, and others of equal eminence in the profession, 
besides the local lawyers of the place, Mr. Ryall, Judge Randolph, 
and others. The forensic contests of these men and forensic con- 
test with them, furnished a most excellent school for the develop- 
ment of Mr. Dayton's peculiar powers. He very soon took rank as 
a young man of great promise.* Gen. Wall, who was a good judge 
of character, detected his undeveloped powers on first coming in 
contact with him ; and meeting Mr. Vroom shortly afterwards, 
whom he knew to have been Mr. Dayton's preceptor, made particu- 
lar enquiries about him, and predicted his future eminence. 



* A newspaper correspondent relates the following incident which took place 
in Freehold, at the November Court, 1833. A friend of the writer had been 
indicted for resenting an insult, and had employed Mr. Dayton, to defend him. 
The result of the case is told as follows: "It so happened that the outgoing 
sheriff, John M. Perrine, Esq., had summoned the grand jury and other jurors 
at the usual time, and that the recently elected and qualified sheriff, Thos. 
Miller, Esq., had made the return of the list or panel to the court, as " duly 
summoned," one sheriff summoning and the other sheriff returning the jurors 
of the term. Here was a 7iut which counsellor Dayton presented to the court 
to be cracked. He contended that the proceedings in relation to the jurymen 
were illegal and void, and moved the court to quash the indictment against the 
defendant, our friend Gravatt. Here was " a pretty kettle of fish." If one 
prisoner was discharged or remanded, all others would have the same claim 
upon the court — all indictments of the term would be null. Counsellor Daj^ton 
made a short, sensible and pointed argument. Attorney General White replied, 
and Judge Ryerson without hesitation, declared the indictment void. The de- 
fendent was discharged upon his own recognizance. 

"All this was followed by a buzz through the then little village of Freehold. 
Young Dayton's name was upon every body's tongue. You could hear the 
exclamations "What! all the indictments quashed?" " No criminal business 
this term?" " That Dayton is sharp." "He knows more than we thought," 
with sundry similar expressions of commendation. From that day Mr. Dayton 
had no lack of chents." 



10 MEMORIAL OF HON. WILLIAM L. DAYTON. 

They soon became warmly attached to each other, and the success 
of the younger advocate was a matter of just pride and gratulation 
to his generous senior, although he often felt the weight of those 
blossoming talents to his cost. When appropriate notice was taken 
of Gen'l Walls' death in the Supreme Court many j^ears afterwards, 
_ Mr. Dayton is recorded to have spoken in a feeling manner of the 
character of the deceased ; but when he came to speak of his per- 
sonal relations with Gen'l Wall, the tide of recollection was too 
strong, large tears flooded his eyes, and he resumed his seat. 

So rapidly did Mr. Dayton rise in the public estimation, both in 
regard to talents and character, that in 1837, he was chosen to rep- 
resent the Whig party on their Legislative ticket as candidate for 
the Legislative Council. Monmouth was a strong Democratic 
County, having for five successive years elected the Jackson ticket 
by large majorities. But in 1837 came the great commercial crash, 
consequent upon the expansions, the extravagance, and the reckless 
speculations of previous years, and with it a revolution in the polit- 
ical world, which finally resulted in the defeat of Mr. Van Buren's 
administration, and the election of Gen'l Harrison to the Presidency. 
In 1837, the revolution commenced in New Jersey, and Monmouth 
was one of the counties which completely changed its political front. 
The entire Whig ticket was elected, and Mr. Dayton took his seat 
in the Legislative Council. The Whigs had a majority in both 
houses and retained it for six successive years, each year electing 
William Pennington, Governor. The legislature of 1837-8, of which 
Mr. Dayton was a member, in its Second Session, in February, 
passed one law which had a very important effect on the judiciary 
system of this State. Up to that period we had no county court 
of ordinary civil jurisdiction, except the Inferior Court of Common 
Pleas, so-called because the Supreme Court was a Superior Court of 
Common Pleas as well as a court of criminal and prerogative juris- 
diction. The Inferior, or county court was composed of an indefi- 
nite number of judges, from three to a dozen or more, none of whom 
were ever, or rarely ever, selected from the bar, or for any legal 
knowledge they were supposed to possess. This constitution of the 
county courts rendered it necessary to bring all important litigation 
before the Supreme Court, either originally, or by a process of re- 



MEMORIAL OF HON. WILMAM L. DAYTON. 11 

moval from the Inferior to the Supreme Court, technically called a 
habeas corpus cum causa. The increasing population and business of 
the State caused to be felt the necessity of a local tribunal, having 
the confidence of the bar, and the people, and bringing justice at mod- 
erate expense home to every man's door. Mr Dayton was chairman 
of the judiciary committee of the Council, and in that capacity, as 
well as in his place as a member of the Council, he advocated the 
bill referred to, entitled, "An act to facilitate the administration of 
of justice," by which a county court of original and unlimited juris- 
diction in civil cases, was created, to be called a Circuit Court and 
to be held by a judge of the Supreme Court, four times a year in 
each county. A circuit had formerly been held twice a year in 
each county, by the Justices of the Supreme Court, for the mere 
trial of jury causes in the Supreme Court ; but the new Circuit 
Court, besides the trial of these causes, was invested with original 
jurisdiction in all civil cases, as before stated, and soon became and 
has ever since remained the most popular court of common law 
jurisdiction in the State. The new duties required of the Supreme 
Court judges by this law, which went into effect on the 14th of Feb- 
ruary 1838, rendered necessary an increase of judicial force, and the 
1st section of the law added two additional judges to the Supreme 
bench. On the 28th of February the legislature in joint meeting, 
elected Mr. Dayton and John Moore White, then attorney general, 
to fill the new seats on the bench which the law had thus created. 
Mr. Field another member of the same Legislature, was appointed 
Attorney General in the place of Mr. Justice White. 

The Supreme Court was originally composed of a Chief Justice 
and two associate Justices, called respectively 2d and 3d Justices. 
In March, 1798, a fourth justiceship had been added, and the Hon. 
Elisha Boudinot of Newark was appointed to fill it ; but on the expi- 
ration of his term of office, in 1806, the legislature repealed the law, 
and left the bench with three judges (a chief and two associates), as 
before ; which constitution remained until the passage of the law of 
1838. 

Judge Dayton, like his relative Judge Southard, was a young man 
for so distinguished a position, being only just turned thirty-one 
years of age ; but it is generally agreed that in the discharge of its 



12 MEMORIAL OF HON. WILLIAM L. DAYTON. 

duties, probably no man could hare been selected, who would have 
exhibited greater ability, impartiality, or dignity than he. I have 
not the time on this occasion, to review any of his decisions, or to 
descant on the nature of the questions which came up in adjudication 
before him. But I may make the general remark, that his opinions 
were characterized by the same marks of good sense and sound dis- 
crimination, disentangled from small technicalities and mere matters 
of form, which the general character of his mind would naturally 
lead us to expect. His associates were Chief Justice Hornblower, 
and Justices Ford, White and Nevius. Justice Thomas C. Ryerson 
was on the bench when he was first appointed, but died in the follow- 
ing August. The Supreme Court of this State, during the time Judge 
Daj^ton was on the bench, continued to enjoy, as it always has done, 
the higbest confidence of the State of New Jersey, and the respect 
of her sister states. Our judiciary, at least, is one of the things, to 
which we can point with just State pride. 

On the 18th of February 1841, after three years of honorable 
service on the bench of the Supreme Court, Judge Dayton resigned 
that position, and returned to the practice of the law, in the city of 
Trenton, where he then resided. He had for some time contempla- 
ted this step ; but was dissuaded from it until now b}^ his brethren 
on the' bench, and some of the leading members of the bar, "He 
will carry with him," said the leading journal of the State, " to the 
less arduous pursuits of private life, the consciousness and the 
credit of having discharged his public functions with honor to him- 
self and the court." His judicial career having been thus brought 
to a close, we have next to consider him in public life, as the repre- 
sentative of New Jersey in the National Legislature. 

Mr. Southard, after a lingering illness of several weeks, died at 
Fredericksburg on the 26th of June, 1842. He had for the second 
time, represented this State in the Senate of the United States, since 
March 4th, 1833. A little more than one-half of his second term 
had elapsed. Congress being in session, and the State Legislature 
not in session, it devolved upon Governor Pennington to appoint 
Mr. Southard's successor ; and on the second of July, he appointed 
Mr. Dayton, who took bis seat on the sixth. I think it may be 
justly said that the appointment was but in accordance with the gen- 
eral feeling and preference, of the Whig party in the State. 



MKMORIAI. OF HON. WILLIAM L, DAYTON. 13 

Mr. Dayton's senatorial career extended over a period of nearly 
nine years. His appointment to the unexpired term of Mr. Southard, 
was confirmed by the legislature on its first session in October, 
1842 ; and in February 1845, he was re-elected for the full term, 
commencing in March of that year, and ending March 4th, 1851. 

The period covered by these nine years, was a very important 
and eventful one in our history ; and the chief actors in it, with 
whom Mr. Dayton was brought in contact, were liistorical characters, 
whose names Avill go down to the latest ages of the republic. Dur- 
ing this period occurred the independence of Texas, its consolidation 
with our Territory, the Mexican "War, the acquisition of California, 
New Mexico and Arizona ; the slavery agitation which ensued upon 
this acquisition ; the compromises of that subject, which were 
attempted, which were made, and which were broken ; the settle- 
ment of our North Eastern and North Western boundaries with 
Great Britain. These were some of the absorbing topics which 
were discussed and disposed of in that interesting epoch, embracing 
the administrations of Tyler, Polk and Taylor, and the commence- 
ment of that of Fillmore. 

When Mr. Dayton entered the Senate, he found there such men 
as Calhoun and Preston of South Carolina, Berrien of Georgia, 
Benton, William C. Rives, Silas Wright, Crittenden of Kentuck}^, 
James Buchanan, Levi Woodbury, Rufus Choate, Evans of Maine, 
Morehead of Kentuck}^ Willie P. Mangum, Phelps of Ver- 
mont, Robert J. Walker of Mississippi, and others, their fit 
peers and rivals in consultation and debate. Cla}' had deliver- 
ed his celebrated valedictory, and resigned on the last day of 
March previous, in disgust at the ingratitude of Republics, as 
Benton ill-naturedlj^ says, because his party had preferred Geu'l 
Harrison as a more available candidate. Webster was in President 
Tyler's cabinet, holding the portfolio of foreign affairs. He was 
just then negotiating the Ashburton treaty, which defined our North 
Eastern Boundar}-, and which was signed the 9th of August. He 
did not resign till the following year. He returned to the Senate, 
however, in 1845. Mr. Clay returned in 1849. In the course of 
his Senatorial career, Mr. Dayton also met in the Senate, Hale of 
New Hampshire, Dickinson, Dix .and Seward of New York, John 
12 



14 MEMORIAL OF HON. WILLIAM L. DAYTON. 

M. Clayton of Delaware, Reverdy Johnson of Maryland, Badger of 
North Carolina, Mr. Duffie of South Carolina, Dawson of Georgia, 
Bell of Tennessee, Corwin, Ewing and Chase of Ohio, Soule and 
Downs of Louisiana, Jefferson Davis of Mississippi, Douglass of 
Illinois, Cass of Michigan, King and Clemens of Alabama, Hamlin 
and Evans of Maine, Fremont and Gwin of California. Mr. Miller 
of our own State was his colleague during the whole period. 

This list of names is sufficient to show that no council in the 
world at that time, exceeded in dignity the Senate of the United 
States, and certainly no legislative body was charged with the dis- 
cussion of more weighty questions or the settlement of more 
important national affairs. The organization of the national 
power in its ultimate form over half a continent, and the final con- 
solidation of the national territory of this Western Republic, was 
the duty of the day and the hour. 

The United States Senate Chamber at that period, was one of 
the grandest and noblest arenas for the exhibition of oratory and 
statesmanship. I remember well, and can never forget the impres- 
sion made upon my mind, by the appearance and deliberations of 
this body, on the occasion of my first visit to Washington, in Janu- 
ary, 1839. I had the good fortune to witness debates between 
most of the great men of that day, — Clay, Webster, Calhoun, Pres- 
ton, Silas Wright, Benton, Southard, and their associates. I was 
then young, and of course open to vivid and deep impressions. But 
after making due allowances on this account, I must say that noth 
ing of which I ever read or heard, came up so fully to my concep- 
tion of what is august, dignified, and grand in solemn and delibera- 
tive assemblies. Mr. Dayton, I need hardly say to this audience, 
for most of us remember it well, was equal to the place He was a 
fit representative of the gallant and conservative State from which 
he came. Although becomingly modest among the Nestors 
of the Senate, and although he was chary of his speech, deeming it 
the part of wisdom, rather to listen than to be too constantly listened 
to, he soon took rank among the ablest men of the Senate, and ac- 
quired the highest respect and esteem of his associates. And 
whilst his views were fixed and decided on most of the political 
issues of the day, and generally coincided with those of the party to 



MKMORIAL OK HON. WILLIA-M L. DAYTON. 15 

which he was attached, he relied, in an eminent degree, as he always 
had done, on his own independent judgment. Hence, when de did 
speak, there was an originality and force of thought, and earnestness 
of expression, which invariably ensured him the respectful attention 
of the Senate. 

One of the first speeches made by Mr. Dayton on the floor of the 
Senate, was in vindication of the national credit, and the public faith 
of the government. It was in February, 1843. It was at a time, 
when, as some of us may remember, almost every branch of indus- 
try w/is prostrated, not having yet recovered from the financial crash 
of 1837. The government was without resources; the public secur- 
ities had been offered to foreign capitalists, and had been declined. 
Among those, who for a long course of years had been decrying the 
general government and federal institutions, at the e.xpense of state 
sovereignty, a continual snarl of dissatisfaction and depreciation of 
everything national was kept up, until Mr. Dayton's loyal feelings 
were aroused ; he could stand it no longer. Mr. McDuffie of South 
Carolina, had offered some resolutions, declaring, first, that it was the 
solemn and urgent duty of Congress to adopt without delay, efficient 
measures to revive the crippled and decaying commerce, replenish 
the impoverished exchequer, and await the alarming accumulation of 
the public debt of the United States, (which at that time was less 
than forty millions) ; secondly, that a modification of the tariff to a 
mere revenue basis, so as to meet, in some sort, the free trade inclin- 
ations of Great Britain, and to circumvent the threats of smuggling 
along our Northern frontier was necessary ; and thirdly, that a rigid 
system of retrenchment and reform, was rendered imperative by the 
deplorable state of the public finances. 

Mr. Evans of Maine, had offered an amendment, amongst other 
things, declaring that one great want of the country, was a currency 
of uniform value; and censuring the states which had repudiated 
their indebtedness, as a principal cause of our want of credit, and 
declaring that those debts were binding, and could not be annulled, 
and that it was the duty of the people of those states to take meas- 
ures to pay them. Mr. Dayton proposed instead of this amend- 
ment, a resolution, declaring that the distrust and obloquy cast upon 
the Federal Government, by reason of the failure of those states to 



16 MEMORIAL OF HON. WILLIAM L. DAYTON. 

pay, was an unjust and unfounded imputation upon its credit and good 
faith; that while the government deplores the misguided policy of 
those States, it disclaims all liability, legally, or morally, for such 
delinquency, and in vindication of its own uublemished faith and 
honor, it appeals with confidence to its past history. His speech in 
support of this resolution, rings out with a clear sound of unfaltering 
loyalty to, and faith in, our government and country. He hurls back 
upon great Britain, whose bankers and scholars had joined in a 
tirade of abuse against us and our institutions, the charge of faith- 
lessness to public obligations, and shows how the national debt of 
England, of which ours would not pay the discount for thirty days, 
originated in fraud and oppression against the public creditors. He 
takes the President to task for publishing our shame, by sending to 
Congress a public message, detailing his unsuccessful efforts to bor- 
row money abroad, and speaks with scorn of his proposition to offer 
a mortgage on the public lands. 

"Sir,', said he, "I am a citizen of the Federal Government of the United 
States ; I am a citizen of the State of New Jersey ; neitlier hatli ever dis- 
honored their faith by a broken promise. Aside from other objections to this 
plan, my feelings revolt at it as an indignity, as an unmerited imputation. An 
American President recommends to an American Congress, that, in addition to 
our national faith, we give collateral security by mortgage ; that we submit to 
terms in the markets of the world, not asked of other nations ; terms implying 
a distrust of our mtegrity, and our honor!" * * The money could 
have been procured, and has been procured (at home) without any such extra- 
ordinary means. But if it could not have been, taxation was open to us ; 
better that, than negotiating on terms implying a distrust of our integrity." 
And, again ; " Sir, there is no Government in the world, that ought to stand 
higher than that of these United States. There has none — no not one, acted 
with a faith more pure. And how is it with the other sovereignties ? Not one 
can be named which is not staggering under its load." Then, after stating the 
amounts of debts of the principal European powers, he adds : " With these 
budgets of iniquity upon their backs, (the fruits of rapine and war), they stag- 
ger along like the old sinner of Bunyan's Allegory, reading homihes to us, 
doubtmg whether we can follow 1 We, in lusty youth, carrying the weight of 
a thistle down, and with an inheritance stretching from sea to sea ! There is a 
cool assurance in this thing, to which the Ihstory of the world has no parallel." 

So he always talked. Such was the stand he always took. Con- 
fidence in his country, love for it, zeal for its faith and honor, 
pride in its institutions, scorn for its secret enemies, those who en- 
deavored to stab its reputation at home, and to hold it up to shame 



MEMORIAL OF HON. WILLIAM L. DAYTON. 17 

and contempt abroad — undying faith in the greatness, the glory and 
the perpetuity of our nationality, — and at the same time always a 
Jerseyman, such shall we find William L. Dayton, not only in the 
Senate, but to the end of his life. 

In 1843, our State politics experienced a change. The democrats 
carried the legislature and elected the Hon. Daniel Haines, governor. 
The iegislatui'e instructed Mr. Dayton to vote for the bill to remit 
Gen'l Jackson's fine, with interest. This was in December, 1843. 
He took occasion, on presenting the resolutions to the Senate, to 
give his views on the subject of legislative instructions. Of course 
he took the conservative ground which was always maintained by 
the party to which he belonged. In a very respectful and proper 
manner, he laid down what he considered the true rule. He said : 

" But I am unwilling, at this stage of the question, to announce what will 
be my final vote upon the bill I am here for advisement, and so long as a 
single hour remains, — until discussion and deliberation are both exhausted, I 
hold myself " open to conviction." Should I finally c?om&^, the instructions of 
a New Jersey legislature would have with me a controlling power. But, sir, 
while I thus, with unaffected sincerity, acknowledge the high estimate I place 
upon the opinions of that body, let me not be misunderstood. I utterly deny 
the binding force of these instructions. I will not shield myself from a just 
responsibility by subterfuge or evasion. I repeat that I utterly deny the Mnd- 
ing force of these instructions. This chamber was not intended as an automa- 
ton chess-board, nor we as senseless pieces with which others play a game. 
If the legislature of New Jersey go further than to advise me of their wishes, 
— to communicate what they believe to be the sentiments of our common constit- 
uents, they usurp a power which does not belong to them. They were elected 
for no such purpose. I hold my place on this floor, subject to no limitation 
save that affixed by the constitution ; and responsible to no power save that of 
the people. Between them and me, I acknowledge no such "go-between." 
Firmly and yet respectfully, I shall repel every attempt to encroach, in this 
or any other form, upon my constitutional rights. 

" Sir, I was not elected to this body for any specific object, but for general 
legislative purposes. So soon as I assumed my seat, not New Jersey alone, 
but the entire Union was entitled to the benefit of my judgment, of however 
little value it might be. 

"Although New Jersey may be satisfied, as far as it is concerned, to have its 
legislature think for me, will Massachusetts, will Georgia, will Kentucky 
consent ? Asa Senator of the United States, I have relations with them. If 
I substitute the judgment of a New Jersey legislature in place of my own, 
what becomes of those relations? how are those duties satisfied ? 

" But, as a member of this body, the initiatory step on my part, was an oath to 
support the constitution of these United States. Has this doctrine of instruc- 



18 MEMORIAL OF HON. WILLIAM L. DAYTON. 

tions its origin there ? Far from it. The object of that provision which gives 
to the ofSce its duration, was expressly intended to provide against those con- 
stant changes which this doctrine must bring about. Tliis was intended as the 
conservative department of government, a something above and beyond the 
reach of popular impulse, or sudden change ; and yet this doctrine assumes 
that a legislative body, elected annually, may direct us in our official action here, 
or drive us from our seats. If this be so, the constitutional provision is nullified. 
But it is not so; the very act of resigning sooner than violate one's conscience 
by obeying, admits the whole argument. The reasoning by which this doc- 
trine is attempted to be euforced, if I understand it, is, that senators being 
appointed by the legislature, represent the State — the one as the principal, the 
other as the agent. That wherever the principal, through its legislature, 
chooses to instruct, it takes the responsibility, and the agent is bound to obey. 
And yet these gentlemen who profess to act upon this doctrine, iiniformly 
resign when instructed to vote in conflict with their own judgment. And yet 
the vote to be given is rarely, if ever, a question of moral right or wrong ; it 
is a question of judgment only — a mere matter of political expediency. And 
yet upon such a question, and where the principal assumes, as they say, all the 
responsibility, the advocates of the doctrine resign sooner than violate their 
consciences by obedience. Sir, the act of resigning is an admission that, in 
despite of instructions the responsibility is yet with them. If the legislature 
have the right to direct us in our duties here, how on such a question, involving 
no moral principal, can it affect the conscience or the honor to obey ? This is 
one of those difficulties growing out of this doctrine, and the practice under it, 
to which I apprehend there is no satisfactory solution. 

" My views upon this subject are fortunately not the growth of my present 
position ; they were expressed long ago, and under other circumstances. In 
the year 1838, I had the honor to be a member of the legislative council of 
New Jersey. Gen'l "Wall, a highly respectable citizen of that State, then held 
a seat in this body, politically opposed, as he was, to a large majority of both 
branches of our legislature. His friends had, a few years preceding, been lib- 
eral in their instructions to Mr. Frelinghuysen and the late Mr. Southard ; and 
their want of obedience had been denounced wilh the utmost bitterness. But 
the face of things had now changed ; their weapon was in our own hands. It 
was supposed by some that it was our duty to strike ; and that Gen'l Wall 
must obey or leave his seat. I then assumed the position for which I contend 
now — the right to express our opinions, our sense of what we believed to be 
the views of our constituents, but that the same was not, and could not, con- 
stitutionally, be binding upon a member of this body. In this modified form, 
resolutions were passed. They were utterly disregarded by Gen'l "Wail. He 
said they were not instructions. Nor were they in the sense that he understood 
the word. But if we were the principal, and he the agent ; if we were the 
master, and he the servant, — of what importance was the form of expression? 
The servant who knows the will of his master, is as much bound to conform 
thereto as though he had his command. "Words are but the shell ; it is the 
sense which constitutes the kernel." 

In the course of this session, the question of taking possession of 



MEMOKIAL OF HON. WILLIAM L. DAYTON. 19 

Oregon was considerably discussed. By a convention entered into 
between Great Britain and the United States, in 1818, and renewed 
in 1827, the two nations held a joint occupancy of the Country, sub- 
ject to be discontinued on a 3^ear's notice. Some attempts had been 
made to effect a settlement of the conflicting claims of the parties, 
but without success. As earl}^ as 1815, our ambassadors had 
offered to divide the Country by the 49th parallel, although our 
claim extended to the Russian possessions, in latitude, 54° 40'. This 
offer had been rejected by the English Commissioners. Immediately 
after the conclusion of the Ashburton Treaty ; a further attempt 
was made on our part to get a settlement of the question. In 1843 
the offer of 1815, was renewed by our minister in London, and 
again declined. Meantime the Western States began to get restive 
on the subject, and to insist on a more satisfactory disposition of the 
affair; and in January, 1844, Mr. Seraple of Illinois, offered a res- 
olution requesting the President to give the requisite notice for 
terminating the joint occupation of the territory. Bills were also 
introduced to establish a line of military posts from the Mississippi 
to Oregon Territory, for the organization of a territorial government, 
and for guaranteeing to settlers a section of land, etc. 

Mr. Dayton opposed the resolution us uncalled for, improper and 
calculated to involve us in a war with Great Britain, on a question 
eminently proper for negotiation or arbitration. Having discussed 
the titles of the two countries, and shown that whilst our title was 
undoubtedly the strongest, there was nevertheless fair ground for 
difference of opinion on -the subject; he expressed these very states- 
manlike views. 

" But my position is, that, upon principal^ of national law, the question of 
Oregon is the very question of all others, properly the subject of nego- 
tiation, and even of arbitration, in preference to war. By reference to 
those writers who treat upon this subject, it will be seen that a dis- 
tinction is made between such rights as are denominated essential rights ; 
or, in other words, rights upon the maintenance of which the safety 
and existence of a nation depends, and such rights of inferior importance 
as concern merely its interests. The latter are always the proper subjects of 
negotiation and arbitration ; the former never. (Vatel, 279.) And the reason 
of the distinction is obvious. Now, it can scarcely be pretended that either the 
safety or existence of this nation, depends upon its possessing all or only a part 
of Oregon. It is therefore one of those questions upon which, should we re- 



20 MEMORIAL OF HON. WILLIAM L. DAYTON. 

fuse negotiation, and assume an attitude of positive defiance, the sentiment of 
the civilized world would be against us. The power of Great Britain as I view 
the question, is wholly aside the case. There is something more to be dreaded 
than the physical power of all the nations of the earth combined — it is the 
moral power of public sentiment. The one could but waste our substance and 
destroy our people ; the other can take away our good name." 

Mr. Dayton further contended that the Country, in itself, aside 
from its being necessary to our Pacific Commerce, was, by all ac- 
counts, a country hardly worth a contest. His observations on this 
point are, at the present day, curious enough, and illustrate the 
wonderful progress of events within the last twenty years. After 
adverting to the Indian difficulty — showing we would be separated 
from Oregon, by three or four hundred thousand fierce and hostile 
savages, to whom we owed some duties of justice and humanity — he 
dilated on the un desirableness for a long time to come, of having 
Oregon so far filled with settlers, as to take the relation either of a 
State, or an organized territory. ■ 

"But. Mr. President," said he, "aside from all questions of this kind the 
principal one remains. How will the speedy settlement of Oregon effect us ? 
In my judgment, it must be injuriously. The interests of the nation, the dic- 
tates of a sound, far-seeing policy, are against it. To decide this question, it 
is necessary to fix what is to be the real character of this distant settlement. 
Is Oregon *.o be first a Territory, and then one of the States of the Union ? 
Or must it ever remain a distinct government, colonial in its character ? The 
friends of the measure say the former, of course, and they even now have the 
bill on our tables, organizing a vast territorial government. Now, sir, the 
history of the past may justify almost any extravagant expectation for the 
future, but the admission of Oregon as a State of this Union seems to me as 
undesirable on the one hand, as it is improbable on the other. Undesirable 
because, by the aid of the representative principle, we have already spread 
ourselves to a vast, and almost unwieldy extent. I have no faith in the un- 
limited extension of this government by the aid of that principle. The arch 
has just so much strength as its centre, and no more. Every man must see 
that the inevitable consequence of increasing the number of States, (more 
especially if distant, and with peculiar interests), must increase the number and 
amount of conflicting interests. Upon the admission of the very state which 
the Senator represents, this country was shaken as by an earthquake. We 
have already conflicting interests, more than enough ; and God forbid that the 
time shall ever come, when a State on the banks of the Pacific, with its inter- 
ests and tendencies of trade all looking towards tUe Asiatic nations of the 
Bast, shall add its jarring claims to our already distracted and overburdened 
confederacy. 

" But it is not only, in my judgment, undesirable, but improbable. Distance 



MEMORIAL OF HON. WFLLIAM L. DAYTON. 21 

and the character of the intervening country, are natural obstacles, forbidding the 
idea. Bj- water the distance around Cape Horn is said to be about 18,000 miles. 
By land, the distance by the only line of travel is about 5,000 miles from this spot 
to Fort Vancouver, m the valley of the Wallamatte ! We are much nearer, 
then, to the remote nations of Europe than to Oregon. And when considered 
in reference to the facilities of communication, Europe is our next door neigh- 
bor. And this state of things must continue, unless some new agent of inter- 
communication sliall cast up. The power of steam has been suggested. Talk of 
steam communication — a railroad to the mouth of the Columbia? Why, look 
at the cost and bankrupt condition of railroads proceeding almost from your 
Capital, traversing your great thoroughfares. A railroad across 2,500 miles 
of prairie, of desert, and of mountains I The smoke of an engine through those 
terrible fissures of that great rocky ledge, where the smoke of a volcano only 
has rolled before 1 Who is to make this vast internal, or rather external, im- 
provement? Tne State of Oregon, or the United States? Where is to come 
the power? Who supply the means? ''The mines of Mexico and Peru dis- 
emboweled would scarcelj' pay a penny in the pound of the cost." Nothing 
short of the lamp of Aladdin will suffice for such an expenditure. The extrava- 
gance of the suggestion seems to me to outrun what we know of modern 
visionar}'- scheming. The South sea bubble, the Dutchman's speculation in 
tulip roots, our own in town lota and multicaulis, are all common place 
plodding in comparison. But the suggestion seems to me properly part and 
parcel of this great inflated whole. Yiewing this subject practically, we must 
see that no such communication can ever be made. " It wont pay !" At least 
TOO or 800 miles of this travel must ever remain as it now is, rugged mountain 
and barren desert — a great American Sahara, and all the volcanic piles beyond. 
I do not mean to say that they may not be passed ; but I do say they are ob- 
stacles which, in m}^ opinion, forbid that convenient accessibility necessary to 
the intercourse of all that become States of this Union." 

Neither Mr. Daj'ton nor anyone else then foresaw, that the mines 
of Mexico and Peru — or at at least, mines equal to them, would in 
reality within five years from the time of that speaking be discovered 
near Oregon, and disemboweled from the earth by throngs of many 
thousands, flocking thither from the old states; and that the railroad 
and the telegraph would become so developed as to annihilate time 
and space, and connect the States on the Pacific with those of the 
Mississippi and the East, by ties as strong as those which ever 
bound the old thirteen together. 

It only remains to say, that notwithstanding all the gasconading 
which was indulged in, for political eifect, about having the whole of 
Oregon up to latitude, 54° 40' or, "a fight,'' no notice was given 
to Great Britain; but Mr. Polk and his secretary Mr. Buchanan, 
quietly continued the negotiations which Mr. Tyler had commenced, 
13 



22 MEMORIAL OF HON. WILLIAM L. DAYTON. 

until they resulted in the acceptance of the line of 49° North lati- 
tude as our Northern limit, by the Treaty of June 15th, 1846, 
thus settling this boundary question forever. 

THE TARIFF. 

In this session the Tariff, so long a most fruitful source of discus- 
sion and disagreement in our national councils, came on the tapis 
again. The compromise act of 1833 had prescribed a gradual re- 
duction of all duties to 20 per cent, on the value of the article im- 
ported, no matter what those articles were. This minimum rate was 
to be attained on the 1st of July, 1842 ; and after that, all duties 
were to be collected in cash, and no credits given therefor ; and 
were to be laid for the purpose of raising such revenue as might be 
necessary to an economical administration of the Government, and 
were to be assessed on the value of the goods at the port of entry. 
Such was the Compromise Act — based on the principles of a blind 
free trade — paying no regard to the character of the articles, or 
whether they were articles of luxury or necessity, or whether pro- 
duceable at home or not. This compromise was come to for the pur- 
pose of satisfying the South. It was one of those grand efforts of 
the great compromiser. Clay, which will be better understood and 
accurately appreciated when men's heads become more clear than 
they are yet, from the influence of personal and political attachments 
and from the lears of Southern threats of disunion. 

Long before July 1st, I 842, arrived, it became very clear that the 
compromise act was neither adequate to raise the required revenue 
of the country, nor suited to the exigencies of its industry or business. 
And, by its terms, after that period such duties were to be imposed 
as should at least meet the former requirement. 

Accordingly, in August, 1842, just after Mr. Dayton had entered 
the Senate, Congress had passed a new Tariff Act, graduating the 
duties upon different articles with some regard to the manufacturing 
interests of the country, and making them specific or ad valo7-em as 
seemed best calculated to effect the objects in view. 

Many of the duties thus imposed, of course exceeded 20 percent, 
ad valorem. Various efforts were made from time to time to break down 
this tariff, and bring the rates back to the standard of the compro 



MEMORIAL OF HON. WILLIAM L. DAYTON. 23 

mise act ; but they were unsuccessful as long as the Whig party 
continued paramount in the Senate, which it did during the entire 
administration of Mr. Tyler. After the election of Mr. Polk, the 
tariff of 1842 was superseded by that of 1846, which was far more 
acceptable to the advocates of free trade. 

Mr. Dayton always warmly sided with his party in this question 
of the Tariff, and did all in his power to preserve that which had 
been lately established. In January, 1844, Mr. McDuffie, of South 
Carolina, moved to reduce the duties imposed by the act of 1842 to 
the compromise standard. 

The subject having been viewed and discussed from almost every 
standpoint by the ablest debaters of the country, it seemed hardly 
probable that any new interest could be given to it. But Mr. Day- 
ton, in April of this year, in a ver}^ able and original speech which he 
made against Mr. McDufifie's resolution, presented it in its relations to 
agriculture, contending, contrary to the general assumption, that an 
efficient protective tariff was a benefit to the agricultural as well as 
to the other great interests of the country. The old argument 
against the tariff had always been that it was calculated to enrich 
the manufacturer at the expense of the farmer. Mr. Dayton com- 
menced his speech as follows : 

"The tariif act of 1842 has realized, more than realized, the expectations of 
its friends. As a means of revenue, it has filled the empty coffers of your 
country. As a means of protection to labor, its power has been almost miracu- 
lous ; it has raised domestic industry from the dead. A thousand branches of 
industry have sprung up, as it were, in a night. 

"It is my purpose to relieve this act, as far as I can, of the charge of partiality 
in its benefits and operations. It has been charged here and elsewhere thai, 
the tariff act of 1842, as weU as the system of which it is a pare, is calculated 
to plunder the agriculturist and enrich the manufacturer ; or in the emphatic 
words of the Senator from New Hampshire (Mr. Woodbury), it is a system for 
skinning the farmer. 

"It is of that interest and to that interest I mean principally to speak. It is 
to the farmers of the country that this system has been most misrepresented, 
and by them I desire that it shall be understood. If it shall be found to be a 
system of robbery, let them deal with those who sustain it accordingly. I 
think it may be demonstrated that the agriculturists are interested in the per- 
petuity of this system, to an extent at least equal to any other class of the com- 
munity, and that from the very beginning they themselves have been the re- 
cipients of its bounty and the objects of its care." 

He made a masterly examinatiou of the subject thus propounded ; 



24 MEMORIAL OF HON. WILLIAM L. DAYTON. 

after giving a history of the various tariffs, and showing that many 
articles of agricultural production were directly protected by the 
act of 1842, he proceeded to elaborate his principal proposition, that 
the home market afforded to our farmers by the establishment of 
manufactures, far outweighs all counter considerations. The value of 
productions consists not in amount only, but in convenience of mar- 
ket. He also showed from the history and experience of other 
nations that the condition of the agriculturist has always been most 
prosperous when the manufacturing interest was fostered. The gen- 
eral welfare of the country superinduced by an enlarged system of 
manufiictures, was urged with great force. On this point he said : 

"But the agriculturists of our country have an interest in the protection of 
manufactures of a more enlarged character. If any Interest may specially be 
called the country's, it is theirs. They have a deep interest in this question, as 
a question of political economy — of material wealth. "When they are invoked 
to abandon manufactures, and buy and sell abroad, they will count the coat. 

"1. The country is to sink the immense capital now invested iu machinery, 
buildings, &c. 

"2. The country is to sink the skill of its citizens — something of vast import- 
ance, when you recollect the value of that skill as compared with common labor, 
in the production of national wealth. 

"3. The country is to sink all that power for producing national wealth which 
lies in machinery and its propelling agents, water, wind, steam, &c. — a power 
equal in this country to many millions of men. All these must be abandoned 
to the foreign manufacturer, while we return to the simple elementary agents 
of production. How much wealth, as a nation, could we thus produce, com- 
pared with what we now produce ? Have a people ever existed who have be- 
come wealthy in the production of raw material alone ? Would not that coun- 
try necessarily become poor which should so engage itself, and exchange the 
productions of its labor for the labor of another country engaged in manufac- 
tures ? It would have to give the labor of at least five men at home in ex- 
change for the more valuable labor of one man engaged in manufactures and 
aided by machinery abroad. 

"In every aspect of this question, the farmers of this country have personally 
and politically the deepest interest in the perpetuity of this system of protec- 
tion to American industry, and the development of American resources." 

Closely connected with these considerations are those that relate 
to the moral and intellectual advancement of a people. He said : 

"But, sir, this question connects itself, too, with the intelligence and civiliza- 
tion of the country. A high state of mechanical or manufacturing improve- 
ment has ever marked a people of higher intelligence than those engaged in 
producing raw material. Apart from England, already referred to, and looking 



MEMORIAL OF HON. WILLIAM L. DAYTON. 25 

to the Continent, we cannot forget that those beams of lip;ht which first fringed 
with silver the edge of the dark ages, arose from the cities of Germany, the 
early home of mechanical and manufacturing industry. It was from Ghent 
the woolen manufacture came to England. Nay, sir, we might almost say that 
the universities of Germany are but higher emanations of the same spirit. 
Geneva, with its little population of twenty-five thousand, has a fame which 
knows no limit. It was among her artizans that the lights of the Reformation 
found an asylum and a home. Yet her fame rests even more upon her watch- 
makers than her universities. They have grown together, each giving warmth 
and support to the other, without which perhaps both had long since been life- 
less — cold as the waters of their own Leman. I might run round the world 
and upon every spot where mechanical or manufacturing skill has flourished, 
show a people marked for intelligence and civilization. This, sir, is a matter 
for consideration when patriotism is invoked to shut up the manufactory and 
the workshop." 

I do not know that I have ever seen the subject better or more 
forcibly discussed upon its true grounds, than Mr. Dayton discussed 
it in this speech. It can hardly be doubted that the moral as well 
as material interest of every great country, its independence and 
dignity, as well as the happiness of its people, require that it should 
be strengthened and embellished by all the useful and all the liberal 
arts ; and the protection and encouragement of those arts is one of 
the first duties of civil government. Though it should be true 
(which is very doubtful), that the fostering and development of 
manufactures bore hardly on particular interests and particular dis- 
tricts, yet the general good to the whole nation which would be 
thereby effected would more than counterbalance, even to these par- 
ticular interests or districts, the disadvantages they suffered. 

The compromise to which we have referred, was intended to defer 
to a particular interest and a particular district of the country, at 
the expense of the industrial independence of the whole country. 
No such compromise can ever be permanently successful in accom- 
plishing its objects. 

ANNEXATION OF TEXAS. 

Soon came up the absorbing question relating to the annexation 
of Texas — the first of that long series of measures and events which 
ended in the immense enlargement of our territories, and in the 
almost interminable discussions and disputes respecting the exten- 
sion of slavery ; and finally culminated, in our times, in the late 
gigantic rebellion. 



26 MEMORIAL OF HON. WILLIAM L. DAYTON. 

Mr. Dayton, like many other of our most sagacious statesmen, 
suspected from the first the motives of the projectors of Texan an- 
nexation, saw the coming danger afar off, and uniformly opposed the 
project. 

The secret history of this project is given by Mr. Benton in his 
Thirty Years' View. His close connection with the events of that 
period, and his intimate acquaintance with all the principal actors, 
gave him eminent advantages for such an exposition. He traces the 
whole plot, most unerringly, to Mr. Calhoun, who set it on foot for 
the purpose, primarily, of effecting his own elevation to the Presi- 
dency, and strengthening the slave-holding interest in the Union ; 
and secondarily, if not successful, of dissolving the Union, and 
forming, together with Texas, a powerful Southern Confederacy. 
The repeal of the tariff of 1842, and the annexation of Texas, or 
disunion, were the burden of speeches and toasts at political meetings 
and fourth of July dinners in Soy.th Carolina and elsewhere. The 
subject was started and soon got into politics. Others availed 
themselves of it, as well as Mr. Calhoun, as a stalking horse to ride 
into power. 

Mr. Tyler had recurred to the subject of Texas, and the desira- 
bleness of putting an end to the border warfare kept up between her 
and Mexico, in his annual message of 1843. His language was 
peculiar : " Considering that Texas is separated from the United 
States by a mere geographical line — that her territory, in the opin- 
ion of many, down to a late period formed a portion of the territory 
of the United States — that it is homogenous in its population and 
pursuits with the adjoining States, and makes contributions to the 
commerce of the world in the same articles with them — and that 
most of her inhabitants have been citizens of the United States, 
speak the same language, and live under similar institutions with 
ourselves — this government is bound by every consideration of in- 
terest as well as of sympathy, to see that she shall be left free to 
act, especially in regard to her domestic affairs, unawed by force, 
and unrestrained by the policy or views of other countries." 

Mr. Webster left the office of Secretary of State in May, 1843. 
Mr. Upshur, a friend of Mr. Calhoun and of the Texan project, was 
appointed his successor, and after his death by the unfortunate acci- 



MEMORIAL OF HON. WILLIAM L. DAYTON. 27 

dent of February, 1844, Mr. Calhoun himself took the place best 
fitted to carry out his bold designs. On the 12th of April he had 
concluded a treaty of annexation, with the Texan Commissioners, 
which was presented to the Senate on the 2 2d. For the purpose of 
rushing the measure through, the idea had been started that England 
was negotiating for Texas, and stipulating for the abolition of slavery 
therein. The treaty was rejected by a vote taken on the 8th of 
June. One great objection to annexation was that it would, if done 
at that time, necessarily involve a war with Mexico. The subject 
entered largely into the discussions of the ensuing political cam- 
paign. Mr. Calhoun had been disappointed in getting, by means of 
the spirit which he had thus raised, the nomination for the Presi- 
dency. But he had prevented the nomination of Mr. Van Buren, 
and Mr. Polk became the candidate of the Democratic party. Clay 
and Frelinghuysen bore the colors of the opposite side. 

In an address to his constituents at Newark in June, 1844, Mr. 
Dayton had warned them that the object of seeking the annexa- 
tion of Texas was to break down the tariff and strengthen the slave 
power by the creation of four new slave states. " The constitu- 
tional compromise," said he, "by which this feature [of allowing 
three-fifths of all slaves in the basis of representation] was engrafted 
into our political system was solemnly agreed to, and we will stand 
by it as long as the Government shall last But it is asking too 
much to bring upon us an ejitire new country of slaves and slave 
states upon the same terms. We will stand by the compromise as 
it is ; to extend it would be not to extend Liberty but Slavery." 

Mr. Tyler in his next annual message, Dec 1844, strongly advo- 
cated annexation. He said that Mexico would have no right to 
complain, as Texas was actually independent, and we had acknowl- 
edged her independence ; and therefore she had a right to do with 
herself as she chose. 

Early in the session Mr. McDuflSe introduced a joint resolution for 
effecting annexation on the basis of the rejected treaty. Other reso- 
lutions and one bill were offered ; and finally a joint resolution for 
direct annexation was offered, which was eventually passed, with 
certain amendments. One of these was offered by Mr. Douglass to 
the effect that in all that part of the territory north of 36° 30', 



28 MEMOblAL OF HON. WILLIAM L. DAYTON. 

slaveiy or involuntary servitude except for crime, should be pro- 
hibited. The progress of these resolutions excited much debate. 
One historical writer, speaking of these debates in the Senate, says : 
" Few debates have ever occurred in that body in which has been 
engaged a stronger array of talent, or which have been more highly 
characterized by legislative decorum, or the* maintenance of Sena- 
torial dignity. It was one of the most important questions — perhaps 
the most important — ever decided by an American legislature — the 
incorporation of an independent foreign nation into our own by a 
joint resolution — an act which," I still quote, '' was regarded uni- 
versally as an exercise of an extremel}'' doubtful power, and by 
many as unauthorized by the Constitution upon any just principle of 
interpretation. Although the question had excited strong party 
feeling, the reported speeches evince entire freedom from acrimony 
and invective." 

Mr. Dayton delivered his views on the subject on the 24th of 
Februar}^ He took the ground that the proceeding was unconstitu- 
tional, that the legislative power was incompetent to effect the pro- 
posed object : that the power to admit " new states" into the union, 
conferred upon Congress by the Constitution related only to such new 
states as should be formed out of territory already belonging to the 
Union, and did not refer to foreign countries ; that all negotiations 
with foreign powers belonged to the President and Senate, and re- 
quired the consent of two-thirds of the latter body, in which all the 
states were represented : that this was a feature of the Constitution 
which the small states had always valued, as one of their chief 
securities against the overwhelming power of the large States : that 
it was an invasion of their rights in this respect, and an enormity in 
itself, to force new partners upon them with equal representation in 
the Senate and greater in the House, by a simple act or resolution 
of Congress : that it created an additional slave state, with the 
privilege of creating four more slave States ; and that the pretence 
of carrying out the Missouri Compromise, by declaring that slavery 
should be prohibited in all that part of the territory north of 36° 30 , 
was an insult to the free states. No part of the territory extended 
north of that line ; and the proviso had the effect of confirming 
slavery in all the territory south of it — which was a clear infraction 



MEMORIAL OF HON. WILLIAM L. DAYTON. 29 

of the Missouri Compromise. That compromise had reference to 
the territor}' then owned by the United States, and not to new terri- 
tories. This project would introduce a vast new country as slave 
territory, contrary to the spirit of the pledges involved in the Mis- 
souri Compromise. He predicted that this would not be the last 
attempt of the slave power to extend its own area, but that, when 
Texas was filled up, and new free states in the West should ask for 
admission, it would demand still further extension, and not rest until 
it had reached the Pacific. 

The conclusion of this speech is worthy of being repeated here : 

" Mr. President : The integrity of the States of this Union must be preserved 
at any price short of dishonor and impositions on it.s parts too grievous to be 
borne. We ask our Southern friends not to press us too far. We feel that 
while the South has ahvaj-s clamored most, she has had least cause , that the 
government has been almost exclusively in her hands from the beginning. The 
present acquisition we deprecate, first, and principally, because it is a violation 
of the Constitution ; and next, because we feel that it can bring w^itli it no 
commensurate good to counterbalance its evils. It is hanging an immense 
State on the very outermost end of the confederacy, and it gives it the advan- 
tage of leverage against the center. If it cannot, on trial, upheave it, it may 
at least break the beam, and carry a large fragment away with it. Sir, we 
want conciliation ; and we want forbearance at the hands of the South. Of 
country, God knows we have " enough and to spare 1" Filled from its verge 
to its centre with our free citizens and our free institutions, where ui the com- 
pass of light could you find a nation reflecting more of greatness — more of 
goodness 1" 

Before the vote on the resolution was taken, Mr. Walker, of Missis- 
sippi, in order to secure that of Mr. Benton, offered an amendment 
authorizing the President, in his discretion, to open negotiations for a 
treaty with Texas instead of presenting the resolutions themselves 
as a direct proposition for annexation. 

The following account of the final proceedings was given at the 
time of their occurrence : 

" The most intense anxiety has pervaded the public mind for the last three 
weeks, and up to the time at which we go to press with this number, every 
moment adds fresh incident to the topic. For two weeks the TTuited States 
Senate chamber has been the focus. Upon that body the great question de- 
volved. Daily every avenue to the chamber was crammed by persons from all 
parts of tlie Union. Foreign ministers, agents, and officers of all departments 
of the government were there, citizens and strangers, male and female. All 
seemed impressed with the gravity and importance of the question. The de- 
14 



30 MEMORIAL OF HON. WILLIAM L. DAYTON. 

bate, for talent and eloquence, as a whole, has seldom had its equal, certainly 
has never been surpassed in either House of Congress. The uncertaiuity of 
the result — how the vote would be, up to the last moment, served to call out on 
each side the utmost strength of intellect and ardor. There is every reason to 
believe that during the struggle, the majority wavered first to the one side and 
then to the other more than once. * * * * 

"After taking a recess, the Senate met at 6 o'clock to determine the question. 
Mr. Foster proposed an amendment to that of Mr. Walker, which was rejected. 
Mr. Archer then proposed an amendment, directing the President to open 
negotiations with Texas for its annexation to the Union. This was lost by a 
tie vote, 26 to 26. Mr. Walker's amendment then came up and was adopted, 
ayes, 27, nays, 25 , every member being present. The resolution, as amended, 
was then ordered to a third reading by the same vote. The bill was then 
read a third time amidst a profound silence, and without the yeas and nays 
being called, and passed." 

The annexation was consummated on the 4th of July, 1845, by a 
convention of the people of Texas acceding to the terms of the Joint 
Resolution. 

THE MEXICAN WAR. 

The acquisition of Texas involved us in the Mexican War. A 
force was immediately sent to the west of the Nueces, to prevent 
the Mexicans from invading our territory. Gen'l Taylor arrived at 
Point Isabel, on the banks of the Rio Grande, on the 24th of March, 
1846. A fleet of transports reached the same place half an hour 
later. The army of occupation consisted of 3,500 men. About a 
month afterwards, hostilities commenced. On the 11th of May, 
President Polk sent a message to Congress, announcing a state of 
war, which, he said, had been commenced on the part of Mexico, 
whose government " after a long-continued series of menaces, had 
at last invaded our territory, and shed the blood of our fellow citi- 
zens on our own soil." He invoked the prompt action of Congress, 
to recognize the existence of the war, and to raise the means of 
prosecuting it. A bill for raising the necessary men and $10,000, 
000, of money was immediately reported — and passed with great 
unanimity by both houses. It would have been passed unanimously, 
had not the preamble re-echoed the President's fiction, that the war 
had been begun by Mexico. Senators Mangum, J. M. Claj^ton and 
Dayton, whilst voting for the bill, on the principal that when our 
country is in a fight, we must stand by her, right or wrong, had their 
protests against the preamble entered on the journal. 



MEMORIAL OF HON. WILLIAM L. DAYTON. .31 

Mr. Dayton was consistent, throughout, in his comdemnation of 
the objects and purposes of the war. He invariably voted the nec- 
essary measures to sustain the executive in its prosecution, but 
always under protest. His views were quite fully developed in a 
speech delivered on the bill, called the tenth regiment bill, in Janu- 
ary, 1847. 

WILMOT PKOVISO. 

On the first of March, of that year, he contended very ably and 
earnestly for the application of what is commonly called, the Wtlmot 
Proviso, to the acquisition of any new territory from Mexico, at 
the termination of hostilities ; not being willing to encourage any 
further the system of slavery extension which had been so signally 
developed b}'' the annexation of Texas. 

This question came up for discussion in the following manner. 
On the 4th of August, 1846, the President had sent to the Senate 
a confidential message, to the effect that he had resolved on making 
proposals for a negotiation with Mexico — having already sent a letter, 
to that country with that purpose ; and asking of Congress an appro- 
priation of money to aid him in negotiating a peace. The object of 
the money was declared to be, to paj'' Mexico a fair equivalent for 
any concessions she might make, in adjusting a permanent boundary 
between the two countries — that is to say — to acquire additional 
territory from Mexico. A similar message was sent to the House of 
Representatives on the 8th of August, and a bill was immediately 
introduced appropriating $2,000,000, to enable the President to 
conclude a treaty of peace with Mexico. To this bill, before its 
passage, David Wilmot of Pennsylvania, offered the following 
amendment, which acquired so much notoriety, as the famous 
"Wilmot Proviso." 

'■'■Provided, That, as an express and fundamental condition to the 
acquisition of any territory from the Republic of Mexico by the 
United States, by virtue of any treaty which may be negotiated 
between them, and to the use by the Executive of the moneys 
herein appropriated, neither slavery nor involuntary servitude shall 
ever exist in any part of said territory, except for crime, whereof 
the party shall first be duly convicted," 



32 MEMORIAL OF HON. WILLIAM L. DAYTON. 

The amendment was adopted, and the bill passed. It failed, how- 
ever, to receive the sanction of the Senate, and Cone;ress adjourned 
without making the appropriation aslted for. 

There was a great difference of opinion as to the expediency of 
pressing the Wilmot Proviso. Mr. Benton and others, including 
man)^ conservative whigs, contended that it was nugatory, inasmuch 
as slavery had been absolutely abolished in Mexico, and therefore 
did not and could not exist in California or New Mexico, the terri- 
tories which it was supposed might be procured in the negotiations. 
Others, on the other hand, pointed to Texas as an illustration of the 
futility of this argument, and as a proof that slavery would force 
itself into any new territories where it could be profitably used un- 
less expressly prohibited. Others, again, among whom where Mr. 
Douglass of Illinois, proposed to extend the Missouri compromise 
line to the Pacific, and thus end the controversy by another, com- 
promise. 

Mr. Calhoun, and the extreme Southern party, seized upon it as a 
new cause of clamor against the North, denouncing it as the greatest 
possible outrage and injury to the slave states. Ac the same time, 
Mr. Calhoun wrote a confidential letter to a member of the Alabama 
legislature, hugging this proviso to his bosom, Mr. Benton says, as 
a fortunate event as a a means of "forcing the issue," (namely of a 
separation) between the North and the South, and deprecating any 
adjustment, compromise or even defeat of it, as a misfortune to the 
South. 

Considering the ill blood that it was made the occasion of engen- 
dering, it may be deemed to have been a very questionable 
measure. If, however, the Southern leaders were determined to 
"force the issue " at one time or the other — as really seems to have 
been the case — perhaps the pressing of this Proviso was one link in 
that chain of events, which an over ruling Providence designed to 
terminate in the overthrow of slavery, and the crushing out of the 
dogma of secession. For my own part, I always deemed it an 
inexpedient insistment on the part of the North. 

In the following session, a bill was introduced into the house 
appropriating three millions of dollars, for the same purpose as that 
contemplated by the two-million bill of the previous session^ and 



MEMORIAL OF HON. WILLIAM L. DAYTON. 33; 

this Wilmot Proviso was moved as an amendment by Mr. Hamlin 
of Ohio, and adopted. But the Senate instead of waiting for the 
House bill, passed one of its own, without the Proviso, which the 
house finally agreed to on the last day of that Congress, March 3d, 
1847. "Whilst the matter was under discussion in the Senate, on 
the 1st of March, Mr. Dayton made the speech, in favor of the 
Proviso to which I have alluded. The New Jersey Legislature had 
passed a resolution requesting its Senators and Representatives to 
support the proviso, and Mr. Dayton very cheerfully complied with 
this request. 

He contended, first, that Congress had the power to impose such 
a restriction, that is, to prohibit slavery in its territories ; and, sec- 
ondlv, that it was its duty to do so now. His argument on the first 
point has always seemed to me unanswerable. Congress is the only 
legislature, the only fountain of law, for the federal territories. If 
Congress, or such territorial legislature as it mav delegate for the 
purpose, cannot impose laws upon such territories, there is no power, 
body, or jurisdiction that can — and that alternative is an absurdity, 
for all territory must be subject to some government or other. The 
United States is a government, a sovereign power. If it possesses 
territories, no matter how acquired, it must have the usual gov- 
ernmental prerogative of imposing laws upon them. The con- 
stitution expressly says that Congress shall have power to pass all 
laws necessar}' to carry into execution the powers granted. It also 
expresely declares that Congress shall have power to dispose of, and 
make all needful rules and regulations respecting the territory or 
other property belonging to the United States. 

He then examined and demolished the proposition contained in the 
resolutions offered by Mr. Calhoun, that any action of Congress 
which should prevent the citizens of a Southern State from emigrat- 
ing to a new territory or state, with their slave property, was an 
unconstitutional discrimination against such Southern State. This 
proposition he showed by various illustrations, to be an absurdity. 
In New Jersey he said a dollar bill passes for money, in Missouri it 
does not. Congress had adopted the Missouri plan in the territories, 
prohibiting the use of dollar bills in making payment for any of the 
public lands. Was this an unconstitutional discrimination against 



34 MEMORIAL OF HON. WILLIAM L. DAYTON. 

New Jersey or her citizens ? If Congress held the law making 
power over the territories, it had a right to adopt just such laws for 
their government as it might deem most for their benefit and pros- 
perity, without inquiring what state laws they coincided with, or 
what they differed from. 

So with regard to conditions imposed by Congress upon New 
States on their admission into the Union, he showed that they are 
not only valid in principle, but it has even been the practice of 
Congress to impose them. Congress is not hound to admit any State 
when she applies for admission, and if not, then she may impose 
such conditions of admission as do not conflict with the constitution. 
If, for instance. Congress should impose the condition, that the New 
State should never send any Senators to Congress, such a condition 
would be repugnant to the constitution and would be void. But it 
has always been the practice of Congress, to impose certain condi- 
tions. One of the last conditions so imposed, was in the case of 
Minnesota, to wit : that that state should not impose a tax on the 
public lands for five years after their sale. Another condition usu- 
ally imposed is that the lands of non-residents shall never be taxed 
higher than those of residents. These are merely examples. They 
have always been deemed valid. 

As to the expediency of exercising the power in the case under 
discussion, Mr. Dayton was clear that it should be. "If" said he, 
"we would avoid "future and blacker discord, now, now is the time, 
before any personal interests are involved, before an}^ legal rights 
vested, while all is yet in the unpledged, untold future. Sir, if this 
declaration be once made, it will control the conduct of Statesmen, 
— it will regulate the votes of Senators. If the declaration be now 
made, before God, I believe it will, in its results, end the war. If 
nothing but free territory is to be acquired, depend upon it, a South- 
ern President will scarcely hold it worth the millions of money and 
the blood it will cost to obtain it." 

But the provision was not adopted. The Three-million bill was 
passed without it. California and New Mexico were added to our 
domain ; — and thereupon arose other questions respecting the organ- 
ization, government and status, as to slavery of these new territories 
which shook the country to its centre. Mr. Calhoun and his follow- 



MEMORIAL OF HON. WILLIAM L, DAYTON. 35 

ers declared that Congress could not prohibit, could not legislate 
about slavery in the territories ; and that any such legislation would 
be good cause of disunion ; the growing anti-slavery party declared 
the exact contrary, and that Congress ought so to legislate ; and a 
large middle party was in favor of some compromise of the matter 
that should end the dispute, and restore quiet to the countr3^ 

When the treaty with Mexico was concluded in February, 1848, 
Mr. Dayton advocated its ratification, being the first whig who coun- 
seled this course ; and in a speech made soon after, (April 11th) he 
justified himself on the ground that the administration was evidently 
determined to have some territory before closing the War, and the 
real question probably was, whether we were to have the territory stip- 
ulated for in this treaty, or more : in addition to this, the territory stipu- 
lated for, was so situated and of such a character, as practically to pre- 
preclude "that wretched question" as he calls it, of the Wilmot 
Proviso. "This line of 32° North latitude, says he, "gives us a 
country which, I apprehend, can never become permanently a slave 
country." * * << There is no slavery now in the territory 
acquired by the treaty." " The only remaining question is, can that 
country ever become permanently a slave country. I hold that it 
cannot. Thus then, the adoption of this line practically avoids this 
great evil. I am opposed to all extension of slavery. I am opposed 
to all extention of this principle of representation. But while en- 
tertaining these sentiments, I will never turn fanatic, and set the 
world on fire on account of an abstraction, a mere theory, unatten- 
ded by practical results. Representing a constituency with nothing 
at all of political abolition about them, I rejoice in the termination 
of this war, in a manner which avoids this distracting and dangerous 
question." 

In this fond hope, alas, the Senator was doomed to be sadly mis- 
taken. The question continued to be fomented as a basis of acri- 
monious discussion and contention between the different sections of 
the Union. 

These remarks, show however, that although Mr. Dayton was 
invariably opposed to the extension of slavery, he reflected the con- 
servative feelings of his native State, in desiring to avoid all 
occasions of fanning the flames of controversy on the subject. 



36 MEMORIAL OF HON. WILLIAM L. DAYTOU. 

It is not a little singular that this speech, which was intended to 
bring the Whig side of the House to the support of the treaty and 
of the supplemental measures that were necessary to execute it, 
was mainly devoted to the refutation of a speech delivered on the 
23d of March by Mr, Webster against the treaty and all measures 
auxiliary to it. The papers of the day said that Mr. Webster was 
very much excited and in earnest on that occasion, and produced 
one of his grandest intellectual and rhetorical efforts. But Mr. 
Dayton did certainly submit the logic of Mr. W. to a most 
searching analysis, and proved, I think conclusively, that the true 
course for the country and the Whig party, was to carry out the 
treaty in all its parts. 

It is also not a little singular that in a speech thus devoted to the 
refutation of Mr. Webster, Mr. Dayton laid down and dwelt upon 
at considerable length, the position which Mr. Webster subsequently 
took up in discussing the compromise measures of 1850, namely, 
that California and New Mexico (the new territories acquired by the 
treaty) were entirely unadapted to slave labor, and therefore we 
needed no restriction on the subject of slavery in reference to it. Mr. 
Webster in his great speech of March 7, 1850, it will be recollected, 
declared that it wanted no Wilmot proviso to settle the question of 
slavery or no slavery in those regions — the God of Nature had set- 
tled it at the creation. 

It is not a little singular that Mr. Webster and Mr. Dayton were 
then, also, on opposite sides. 

An attempt was now made to organize territorial governments for 
Oregon, California and New Mexico. Various amendments being 
offered, and the slave question being again brought up, a compromise 
committee was appointed, to whom all the bills were referred. Mr, 
Clayton was chairman, and the other members were Messrs. Bright, 
Calhoun, Clarke, Atchinson, Phelps, Dickinson and Underwood. 
They were appointed July 11th, 1848, and on July 19th reported an 
omnibus bill of thirty-seven sections, to establish the territorial govern- 
ments of Oregon, California and New Mexico. This bill, so far as re- 
lated to Oregon, continued in force the provisional laws enacted by the 
people of that Territory (which prohibited slavery), until three 
months after the first meeting of the territorial legislature, and so far as 



MEMORIAL OF HON. WILLIAM L DAYTON. 37 

related to Califoruia and New Mexico, it left tlie question of slavery 
in statu quo, and prohibited any action on the subject by the provi- 
sional legislative bodies created by the act, leaving that question, as 
the committee said, to be settled by the Judges, with an appeal to 
the Supreme Court. If the right to carry and to hold slaves in those 
Territories really existed, the Court would so decide ; if not, not. 
And in this way the committee believed the question would settle 

itself without further agitating the country. 

« 
Mr. Dayton voted against this bill. He was opposed to any leg- 
islation, actively to he adopted by Congress, which should continue in 
doubt the status of those new territories as to slavery. He was also 
especiall}'' opposed to any legislation which should throw the {ques- 
tion upon the Supreme Court. On this last point his observations 
are noteworthy. He said : 

•'But, again, for one, I feel an utter aversion, an invuicible repugnance to 
throwing, unnecessarily, the decision of this exciting question upon the Supreme 
Court of the United States. Let us blow off our own political steam, and that 
of our excited constituents, if we can. That Court is the sheet anchor of the 
hopes of conservatism in this country ; if public feeling be excited — as it is 
said to be — I do not wish unnecessarily to see that Conrt stagger under the 
weight of this question. I do not want to see that Court forced into a position 
where it will have to decide an exciting question, having fifteen States of this 
Union upon one side, and fifteen upon the other. Drag that Court and your 
Judges into this scene of political strife, and the consequences may yet be de- 
plored by us all. 

" "We cannot even hope, if we judge of the mind of the Supreme Court from 
the contrariety of opinion we have had here, that there will be unanimity upon 
that bench ; and if not unanimity, this question will be tried over and over 
again. Appointments to the bench will be made in reference to it. You will 
then, sir, have dragged this tribunal — our last, our onlj' hope — into the scene 
of poHtical strife, and the end may be that you will see its dead body fastened 
to the triumphant car of one political party, as it shall ride over the prostrate 
principles and down-trodden battlements of the other." 

The bill passed the Senate the same day (July '26th, 1848) 33 to 
22 ; but in the House, it was contended by leading Whig members 
A. H. Stephens of Georgia in the number, that all the bill did was 
to postpone the question, not to settle it, or to give any peace to the 
country ; and two days afterwards it was laid on the table by a vote 
of 114 to 96. This session passed without effecting any legislation 
for the new territories. A territorial act was passed for Oregon in 
August. 
15 



38 MEMORIAL OF HON, WILLIAM L. DAYTON. 

In the second session of the thirtieth Congress, ending March 3d, 
1849, being the first session after r,he discovery of gold in California, 
and after the rush of an immense emigration thither, an attempt was 
made to admit California and all of New Mexico west of the Rio 
Grande, as a State. This Mr. Dayton, as well as the committee to 
whom the matter was referred, opposed. He thought the country 
was not yet prepared for a State Government, that the boundaries 
proposed were too extensive and vague, and that Congress could not 
constitutionally create^ although it might aihnit, a new State. That 
the proper course was to establish first a territorial government, and 
when the population came, admit them as a State. An attempt was 
also made to extend the constitution over those territories and all 
such general laws of Congress as might be applicable to their condi- 
tion. This Mr. Dayton opposed, on the ground that the constitution 
could not be extended by a mere law over territories where it did 
not operate jjroprio vigors ; and that so to extend it, if it could be 
done, would, according to the views of Southern men, alter the 
status of the territories as to slavery. He would not have any such 
alteration made until the proper time should come for affixing a 
definite form to the institutions or government of those regions. 

Nothing was done for the new territories at this session, except to 
extend the revenue laws to California., and direct that all infractions 
thereof should be tried in the District Court of Oregon, 

Thus we are brought down to the administration of Gen. Taylor, 
and to the last session of Congress in which Mr. Dayton occupied a 
seat in the Senate. The duty of settling the grave and solemn 
questions which had been gathering to a head for several years was 
thus thrown upon the new administration. The President called 
around him as liis constitutional advisers Messrs. Clayton, Meredith, 
Crawford, Preston, Collamer, Reverdy Johnson and Ewing. He 
was a Southern planter, and a blunt honest soldier, and true patriot. 
If ever man wished to do right, and that which was best for the 
whole country it was Zachary Taylor. 

The final conflict came and the greac and enduring c( mpronise 
(as it was then supposed) was made at the first session of Congre-ss 
'.I'hich assembled under his administration. 

Congress met as usual, on the first Monday in December, -ut the 



MRMORIAL OF HON. WILLIAM L. TAYTON. 39 

house was net organized till Saturday the 24th of December, when 
Howell Cobb was elected speaker over Mr. Winthrop, by a plurality 
vote of 102 to 99, with 20 scattering. 

The first message of President Taylor, was presented on the 24th. 
In it the President stated that the people of California, impelled by 
tlie necessities of their political condition, had recently met in Con- 
vention, (Septenii-er, 1849) for the purpose of forming a Constitution 
and State Government ; and it was believed they would shortly 
iipply ibr admission into the Union as a State. Should t'.ie; do so, 
he recomni-^nded their application to the favorable consideration ot 
Congress. 

The people of New Mexico, he stated, would also probably soon 
ask for like admission into the Union. 

By awaiting their action, all causes of uneasiness might be avoided, 
and confidence and kind feeling preserved. With the view of main- 
taining the harmony and tranquility so dear to all, we should abstain, 
said the President, from the introduction of those exciting topics of 
a sectional character, which have hitherto produced painful appre- 
hensions in the public mind ; and he repeated the solemn warning 
of Washington, against furnishing any ground for characterizing 
parties by geographical discriminations. 

But, notwithstanding this attempt of the President to nullify the 
political elements, they soon began to gather themselves preparatory 
to a terrible storm, and the compromise bills were not finally passed 
until the following September. 

This session of Congress, the first and only one under President 
Taylor's administraton, as it was one of the longest, it was one of the 
most eventful and exciting ever held. It continued until the last 
day of September, 1850. It comprised all the great statesmen of 
that generation. Clay, Webster and Calhoun were there at its com- 
mencement, and each partook largely, and bore an important part, 
in its deliberations. Berrien, Benton, Cass, Chase, Douglass, Phelps, 
Seward, Badger, and Sam Houston were there. New Jersey was 
worthily represented by Messrs. Dayton and Miller. Mr. Calhoun 
made his last great efforts in this session, and died on the last day 
of March. The death of the President occurred on the 9th of July, 
and Mr. Fillmore left the Senate to assume the duties of the presi- 



40 MEMORIAL OF HON. WILLIAM L. DAYTON. 

deiicj ; and on the '22d, Mr. Webster was called to preside over the 
Department of State. Mr. Clay remained until the adjournment. 
The work of this session seemed to be the summing up of the great 
drama in which he and his illustrious compeers had so long been 
the chief actors. 

The problem to be solved, if it could be solved, was, the settle- 
ment of the contest between the ahhereuts of slavery, and those 
who desired to abolish or restrain it. It involved several distinct 
questions. One was. whether slavery should or should not be per- 
mitted in the new territories acquired from Mexico. Another related 
to the true boundary of Texas. A third was as to the abolition of 
slavery and the slave trade in the district of Columbia. And the 
fourth, was the demand of the South for the passage of a more 
stringent law, for the rendition of fugitive slaves. 

The first of these questions, had become ramified into several 
branches. It was well understood, and conceded, that Texas was 
slave territory ; but the boundaries of Texas were disputed. Sla- 
very had been abolished b}^ Mexico ; and hence it was contended 
by the anti-slavery portion of Congress, that all those territories 
which came to us directly from the recent cessions of territory by 
that country, were free. A.nd although the extreme Southern ele- 
ment insisted that the citizens of slave states, had a constitutional 
right to emigrate with their slave property, as well as their other 
property, into all the government territories, yet they did not like to 
yield a certainty of right in whatever territory Texas was justly 
entitled to. Hence the settlement of the boundaries between Texas 
and New Mexico, was one of the difficult things to be determined. 
Again, the an ti- slavery members insisted on the insertion of the 
Wilmot Proviso, into any acts passed for the government of Utah 
and New Mexico. As for California, her people had adopted a con- 
stitution prohibiting slavery Ibrever, and early in the session her repre- 
sentatives applied for her admission into the Union. The President 
communicated this constitution and request to both Houses of 
Congress, on the 13th of February. He had alluded to the subject, 
as we have seen, in his annual message, and had recommended the 
admission of the State, without waiting for New Mexico and Utah. 

This indicated the policy of the administration, to settle each 



MEMORIAL OF HON. WILLIAM L. DAYTON. 41 

question upon its own merits as it arose. Bat this was not satisfac- 
tory to the South, nor to many of those who wished to eifect a 
general compromise of the whole subject. Mr. Calhoun strenuously 
insisted that the Southern States could not remain in the Union 
with safety or honor, unless they had sufficient guaranties for the 
protection of their institution ; and that no guaranties would be 
sufficient short of an amendment to the constitution. A large party 
led by Mr. Clay, deemed it feasible (as had been done by the 
Missouri Compromise) to allay the whole agitation by a general 
system of compromise measures, embracing all the subjects of con- 
troversy. Deferring, for this purpose, to those who advocated the 
Southern interests, they were opposed to the admission of California, 
with the constitution adopted by her, without at the same time 
maturing satisfactory dispositions of the other contested subjects. 

On the 29th of January, Mr. Clay, who was not very ardently 
disposed to co-operate harmoniously with the administration, intro- 
duced a series of resolutions which in the main, formed the basis of 
what was afterwards agreed to. They declared that California ought 
to be admitted as a State, with the constitution which she had adop- 
ted ; that governments ought to be organized in the other territories, 
without any restriction whatever for or against slavery ; that Texas 
should extend Westerly to the Rio Grande, and Northerly to a line 
drawn from El Paso, to the South "West angle of the Indian terri- 
tory ; (this was afterwards extended farther North) that the slave 
trade should be prohibited in the District of Columbia, but that 
slavery should not be abolished therein without the consent of Mary- 
land; that a more effective law for the surrender of fugitive slaves 
should be passed. Mr. Clay sustained these resolutions, both at the 
time of their introduction and afterwards, by some of his ablest 
efforts. On the 4th of March, Mr. Calhoun made his great speech 
on the subject, which was read by Mr. Mason. On the 7th of 
March, Mr. Webster delivered that magnificent speech, which, it has 
always appeared to me, was his greatest senatorial effort. 

Bills were introduced on the various subjects referred to, and a 
general committee was, finally appointed, with Mr. Clay at its head, 
who recommended their passage. In the end, however, they were 
all passed as separate laws, except those relating to the boundary of 



42 MEMOBIAL OF HON. WILLIAM L. DAYTON. 

Texas and the boundaries and government of New Mexico, which 
were united into one bill. Perhaps the fugitive slave law excited 
more opposition than any of the others. 

Mr. Dayton, in these discussions, advocated generally the views 
of the President, — rather than the compromise projf cts of Mr. Clay 
and others. He expressed the belief that when the excited state of 
public feeling could be a little becalmed, there was really but little 
to quarrel about, and no necessity for a grand effort at compromise* 
His speech on the 23d of March, contained a very able argument in 
favor of the admission of California with the Constitution, which she 
had adopted. It also contained a strong argument against many of the 
features of the proposed fugitive slave bill. As to the other territo- 
ries, New Mexico and Deseret, he thought there was no occasion to 
be in haste to provide governments for them. Let them stand as 
they are. As to what he should do when bills should be presented 
for that purpose, he remarked as follows : 

"Well, Mr. President, I shall be asked, what tlienT will you vote for the 
Wilmot Proviso ? Is that your principle ? My answer is, that I am willing 
for the present — to stand upon the doctrine of "non-intervention" as to New 
Mexico and Deseret. But if you force me to a vote on this question; if a terri- 
torial bill be presented, and the ordinance of 1789 is moved, I will vote for it; 
but if voted down, I may yet vote for the bill ; that will depend upon other 
circumstances. I have no doubt that the power to insert the ordinance exists. 
The power has been often exercised, but I do not care to see it exercised now 
in this case, if you are willing to stand opon the doctrine of " non-intervention. 
But then it will be asked, do you think slavery will go into the territories? If 
you do not, why should you vote for the Proviso ? I do not think that slavery 
will go into these territories as a permanent or principal institution. Still, I 
think that if you will fill Texas with slaves up to the line, they will go over, 
just as they went into Illinois, where, at the last census, there seemed to be 
still some three hundred and twenty-odd. But if there were doubt in my mind, 
I confess a strong repugnance to having my vote stand on the record against 
the application of the ordinance of 1787, to territory now free; posterity will 
not stop to analyze very closely our reasons, or scrutinize our motives, but the 
vote will stand on record, carrying with it its own malconstrmtion. If it is 
understood that slavery cannot reach that country, it seems to me that the 
question has come down to a small point indeed. Why not insert the Proviso? 
We are told that it will ofiFend the South ; that it will touch their sensibilities. 
Now I do not want to do that ; and yet if it be a question of sensibility 
between the North and the South, I suppose that I may say that tliere are as 
many persons in the North whose sensibilities will be touched by its omission, 
as there are persons in the South whose sensibilities wiU be touched by its 



MEMORIAL OP HON. WILLIAM L. DAYTON. 43 

insertion. But now this great question (if it be admitted that slavery cannot 
go there) is whittled down to a point like this — a question of delicacy, a point 
of etiquette between the North and the South, and we have had all this war 
of words, and intense excitement aboiit a question of this kind. "Why, 
California out of the way, never was there such an insignificant cause for such 
an uproar. We have the North and South contending with each other to des- 
peration, upon the small chance (an admitted decimal only) of slavery going 
where it is said it cannot — into these territories now free. The subject matter 
is not worth the effort; "the play is not worth the candles." * * * 

" Let us dispose of California first, and then the fugitive slave bill ; we will 
thus have gotten rid of two of the greater elements of excitement. Then as 
to New Mexico and Deseret, let ihem alone ; the South cannot very well secede, 
because we do nothing. In the meantime Nature will work off the disease 
itself. It is true the country will be fevered a httle longer by this process, 
but that is better than any legislative pill or bolus, " warranted to kill or cure." 
Let nature take her course, and she will work her way through without ulti. 
mate injury to the constitution of the patient. The territories will take care 
of themselves." * * * 

"I have no idea, Mr. President, that any considerable portion of the people 
of this country, desire disunion. At the North I am sure they do not; and 
the South, I think, can have no wish, with a view of gettiug rid of trivial 
evils, to rush into a state of things that will multiply them a thousand fold." 

On the 11th and I'ith of June, 1850, Mr. Dayton addressed the 
Senate on the compromise measures ; objecting that they really 
effected nothing, but left the main question of difference, viz., slavery 
in the territories, to be disputed about and determined hereafter. 
He took strong ground in favor of the President's recommendation 
to treat the admission of California as a separate and distinct meas- 
ure, standing on its own merits ; and to consider and decide upon 
the establishment of territorial governments in Utah and New- 
Mexico, and the establishment of the Texan boundary, as questions 
distinct from the other. He regarded the union of these measures 
into one bill (as recommended by Mr. Clay's committee), as a log- 
rolling device, intended to avoid the application of the Wilmot Pro- 
viso to the new territories, and thus to evade the most vital question 
of the day. He warned the Senate that the principles of this Pro- 
viso could not be quietly laid and disposed of in this manner. As 
to the necessity of territorial governments for these territories at 
this time, he doubted it ; and he utterly repudiated, and by very 
strong argument disproved, the title of Texas to any part of Ne# 
Mexico, for which it was proposed 'o give her several millions of 



44 MEMORIAL OF HON. WILLIAM L. DAYTON. 

dollars. He also condemned the severity of the Fugitive Slave 
Law reported by the committee, and pointed out its unjust features 
and arbitrary character : that it gave a claimant power, on his own 
affidavit, taken exparte in a slave state, to seize a colored person as 
his slave in a free state, without trial b}^ judge or jury ; and thus 
conprOmitted the dignity of the free states and took from them that 
prerogative of protection over their own citizens and inhabitants, 
which no state, whatever its obligations to other states, can surren- 
der without dishonor. 

This speech made a deep impression upon the Senate. Senator 
Foote, of Mississippi, very broadly hinted that in delivering it Mr. 
Dayton's eye was fixed on the other end of the avenue, and the re- 
wards an administration always has at its command. ' Whatever 
impression," said he, "the Honorable Senator from New Jersey may 
have made upon this body, or at this end of the avenue, in regard to 
the general soundness of his views, or in relation to the loftiness of 
his own motives (which I certainly shall not for a moment call in 
question), I feel certain that within the last twenty-four hours the 
Honorable gentleman has said enough, in that very able and elo- 
quent speech to which we have been listening for the greatest part 
of two days, to establish the strongest and most lasting claims to 
the respect, friendship, and gratitude of certain official personages 
to be found at the other end of the avenue, in behalf of whom, and 
in defence of whose policy he has displa3^ed a zealous devotedness 
which, if it should not be adequately requited in some way, I will 
think worse of human nature as long as I live. I say, sir, and I 
say it with profound sincerity and seriousness, that if the Hon- 
orable Senator from New Jersey shall not find hereafter that his 
generous exertions on this occasion are gratefull}'' appreciated in a 
certain high quarter, he will, in my judgment, have much reason to 
complain of the coldness and injustice of those to whose rescue he 
has come at a moment when it was so necessary that they should 
be defended against the furious assaults which the}'' are constantly 
receiving here and elsewhere." 

}Ax. Dayton replied with becoming dignity : 

" I wish," said he, " to say in reply, but a word or two, and that will be only 
to express my entire ignorance of what the Senator means by his allusions to a 



MEMORIAL OF HON. WILLIAM L. DAYTON. 45 

proper appreciation elsewhere of the value of my services, or by political 
rewards; and further to express ray great regret, that the Senator from 
Mississippi should have thougiit it necessary and proper to refer here to any- 
thing of the kind. I repeat, sir, I do not know what the Senator means. I 
am profoundly ignorant of the point or intent of his insinuation. I can only 
say, sir, that I have spoken my own sentimerxts, and not the sentiments of 
another. I have not been much in the habit of intruding them frequently 
upon the Senate, perhaps as rarely as most gentlemen of this body. I have 
spoken earnestly, for that, is my temperament and habit ; but I trust, with 
sufficient modesty, and a due regard to others, seeking no political rewards, and 
no recognition of services, valuable or otherwise, and caring nothing for such 
recognition one way or the other." 

The speech, as I have said, produced a profound impression. It 
contained a great deal of solid argument, and sound sense ; and 
much attention was given by subsequent speakers, who advocated 
the omnibus bill, to attempts at answering its positions. 

The result of it all was, that although the omnibus bill of Mr. 
Clay was defeated, separate bills were passed and became laws on 
the 9th day of September, 1850. which embodied most of the pro- 
visions of that bill ; and on the 18th of the same month, the fugitive 
slave bill; and on the 20th, the bill to suppress the slave trade in 
the District of Columbia, also became laws. 

Thus was effected the third Great Compromise between the North 
and the South — all of which, as we have seen, have failed to ward 
off that awful conflict which has been enacted in our own days. 

It may be well questioned whether Mr. Dayton was not right in 
counseling action in each case as it might arise, and meeting it man- 
fully under a sense of duty to the country and the constitution. 

In reviewing Mr. Dayton's senatorial career, we may briefly say : 
that he always frankly expressed, and ably enforced his own convic- 
tions on all the political issues of the day ; that he was original in 
his conceptions, independent in his positions and dignified and cour- 
teous in his bearing ; and, withal, was devotedly attached to the 
honor and dignity of his country, and to the inviolability of the 
Union. He fitly represented the noble state which selected him, 
and achieved for himself an honorable distinction among her many 
worthy sons who have occupied the same position. 

For several years after his return to private life, Mr. Dayton 
assiduously devoted himself to the pursuits of his profession, being 
16 



46 MEMORIAL OF HON. WILLIAM L. DAYTON. 

almost invariably employed on one side or the other of every im- 
portantant cause litigated in the state courts. 

In 1845, he was selected as one of the revisers of the state laws, 
in connection with Chancellor Green, Hon. P. D. Vroom and Judge 
Potts. The work of this commission was issued in 1847, in the 
volume of Revised Statutes, then published. In 1857, he was ap- 
pointed Attorney General of the State, and occupied that position 
until he assumed the duties of minister plenipotentiary to France. 

In 1856, he received the nomination of his party for Vice Presi- 
dent, on the same ticket with Col. Fremont, being the first presenta- 
tion of a National ticket, by the Republican party. Mr. Dayton 
was well understood to be conservative in his views, and perhaps it 
was on this account that he was chosen, to counter-balance in some 
measure the supposed radical tendencies of Col. Fremont. But the 
ticket was unsuccessful. Mr. Buchanan was elected President, and 
we had one more Presidential term, in which the politicians of the 
South were assiduously deferred to, and every attempt made to 
conciliate its people. 

But all to no purpose. The great political whirlwind of 1860, 
carried into office the representative of the new party, and the 
southern states were goaded on by the inflammatory appeals of their 
political leaders, to carry out their long continued threats of disunion. 
Mr. Dayton's part in the events which followed was a most im- 
portant and trying one, and one which fitly became the crowning 
glory of his life ; yet to which the nature of this address, will allow 
us to devote but a limited space.* 

In March 1861, he was appointed by President Lincoln, minister 
plenipotentiary to France, at that time one of the most responsible 
positions in the gift of the Government. He arrived at his post on 
the 11th of May, and immediately put himself in communication 
with the French Government, then represented in the bureau of For- 
eign affairs by Mr. Thouvenel. He applied for an early presentation to 
the Emperor, which was granted on the 19th of the same month. 



* A more detailed account of Mr. Dayton's services as minister to France, 
is given by Mr. Elmer in his " Sketches of the Bench and Bar of New Jersey," 
published by the Society since the preparation of this address. 



MKMORIAL OF HON. WILLIAM L. DAYTON. 47 

This interview was very satisfactory to Mr. Dayton. The Emperor 
after a courteous welcome and some remarks personally complimen- 
taiy to himself, said, in substance, that he felt great interest in the 
condition of things in our country ; that he was very anxious our 
difficulties should be settled amicably, that he had been and yet was 
ready to offer his kind offices, if such offer would be mutually agree- 
able to the contending parties, that whatever tended to affect injuri- 
ously our interests was detrimental to the interests of France, and 
that he desired a perpetuation of the Union of the States. From 
this time forward until his death, Mr. Dayton's personal relations at 
the French Court were of the most agreeable kind. He very soon 
acquired the entire confidence of the Emperor and of his ministers 
in his candor and truth, so much so, that it has been known more 
than once to occur, when our affairs were under discussion between 
the Emperor and his minister of foreign affairs, and any question 
arose as to the exact state of facts, the minister would say — "I know 
it must be, so j^our majesty, for Mr. Dayton told me so." This refer- 
ence was alwa3's considered satisfactory. The anecdote speaks well, 
not only for Mr. Dayton, but for the Emperor's just appreciation of 
honorable character. Personall}^ he always received the most 
uniform kindness and consideration at the hands of the Court. 

Mr. Dayton's sound sense and discriminating judgment undoub- 
tedly stood the Country he represented in good stead throughout 
the entire period of his ministry. The most unreserved confidence 
subsisted between him and M. Druyn De L'Huys. Mr. Dayton 
never hesitated in impressing upon our government at home the 
truth of any representations made to him in their intercourse. Nor 
was he deceived. He had too much of the respect of M. Druyn De 
L'Huys and the Emperor, to be made the object of deception. 

The course taken by the imperial government in recognizing with 
England the belligerent rights of the South, was not satisfactory to 
to Mr. Dayton, nor to our government, it is true, but it was frankly 
communicated, and the reasons for it plausibly urged. 

We have great reason to be gratified at the manner in which our 
foreign affairs were managed at Paris, as well as in England. Such 
was the eagerness of the English and French people to do us injury, 
and to profit by our misfortunes, that any thing else than very 



48 MEMORIAL OF HON. WILLIAM L. DAYTON. 

able, efficient, and assiduous representatives, on our behalf, at the 
English and French Courts, must have resulted in disastrous conse- 
quences. 

Mr. Dayton lived to receive the welcome news of the victorious 
progress of our arms under Generals Sherman and Thomas in the 
South West ; and the firm grasp which General Grant, with the 
army of the Potomac had secured on the central power of the Con- 
federacy at Richmond. The dire civil strife in which the country 
had been so long engaged, was nearly over, and the friends of the 
Union had begun to congratulate themselves upon the approaching 
restoration of the national authority, and return of peace. But Mr. 
Dayton, who had the ultimate triumph of the cause so much at heart, 
was not permitted to see the end. On December 1st, 1864, he died 
suddenly at Paris whilst making an evening call at the rooms of a 
friend. His death, so sudden, so unexpected, produced a painful 
shock both in France and in this Country, and most of all, in this 
his native State. What a mysterious Providence ! In the full vigor 
and maturity of body and mind, in the very culmination of his large 
intellect, he instantaneously dropped out of this busy scene. There 
was no decline of "his powers, physical or mental. His sun went 
down at noon -day. Without a warning, without a farewell to his 
family or his friends, he ceased to live. Is this, or is it not, a happy 
termination of earthly existence ? It may be deemed a difficult 
question to decide. But it leaves one very forcible impression on 
the mind — this cannot be the end. It cannot be possible, that such 
faculties, and powers of action and enjoyment can be instantly 
annihilated. Either there is no Supreme Ruler and Governor of all, 
or the soul must be immortal. 

It is unnecessary to attempt a portraiture of his character. If 
successful in sketching his life, I have sketched his character. 
Every man's life is the true expression of his character. He draws 
it himself. There it is, as he made it. And that of our deceased 
friend needs no touches of the pencil to embellish his. 

The estimation in which he was held at home is well known to us 
all. Neither dues anything need to be added on that subject. But 
it is proper, perhaps, to call attention for a moment to the estimation 
in which he was held abroad. 



W 80 



MEMORIAL OF HON. WILLIAM L. DAYTON. 49 

The Paris "Constitutional," on announcing his death in a semi-offi- 
cial notice, said : 

"Mr. Dayton, prematurely removed from the esteem of all who knew him, 
carries away universal regret. As we have already said, the honorable diplo- 
matist was one of the inheritors of the wise and noble traditions bequeathed 
to their country and to history by the founders and tlie chief statesmen of the 
American Republic. He belonged to the school of Washington and Franklin. 
A Minister in France while his country was passing through the most terrible 
crisis, and amid delicate circumstances, Mr. Dayton avoided, by the courtesy of 
his manners, the prudence of his language and the moderation of his mind, 
many complications and embarrassments. The United States lose in Mr. Dayton 
an eminent citizen, and to-morrow we shall accompany with respect the cofiQn 
of the wise politician and the honest man." 

The Paris "Debats" speaks as follows : 

In a delacate position, the representative of a country torn by civil war, and 
often impeded by skillful adversaries, we find Mr. Dayton acting with a pru- 
dence and measure that cannot be too highly praised. It must be admitted, 
too, tliat he found in M. Druyn De L'Huys a minister of foreign affairs who 
had not forgotten the old traditions of friendship between France and the 
United States, and that the greatest difficulties are easily settled when there is 
on both sides perfect candor and a sincere desire to mutually avoid everything 
that can envenom excellent and old-established relations. But we shall be con- 
tradicted by no one when we affirm that the upright conduct and frankness of 
Mr. Dayton contributed to a great extent to the cordiality which has prevailed 
between the two countries. 

The "Opinion Nationale," after giving a sketch of the deceased 
Minister's life and public services, added : 

"The honorable gentlemen fulfilled his diplomatic functions with a rectitude 
and tact which procured him the esteem of even his political adversaries ; and, 
assuredly he had to take an active part in a whole series of important and 
delicate questions. It will suffice to mention the affair of the Trent — the 
repeated visits of the Confederate war vessels to ports of France — the different 
phases of the Mexican expedition — the offers of European mediation rejected 
by the United States — and the building of war vessels for the South at Nantes 
and Bordeaux. In all these difficult circumstances he always had a safe rule 
of conduct, an infallible guide — political probity." 

These eulogies give but a fair indication of the esteem in which 
our deceased friend was held by the eminent statesmen with whom 
he came in contact, in the country to which he was accredited. 

His name has indeed been inscribed on the roll of the Honobable 
Dead. 



so MKMOETAL OF HON. WILLIAM L. DAYTON. 

Mr. Dayton at the time of his death, was fifty-seven years of age. 
Though not old in years, his life was a full, well rounded life. 
Depending, from the first, mainly on his own exertions, and ever 
faithful to his own cherished doctrine of the virtue of self-reliance, 
he performed his part ably and well. By his own efforts he advanced 
progressively from one degree of eminence and dignity to another. 
His influence on his generation was healthful and beneficent. He 
left his children a legacy of honor in the heritage of an unsullied 
name, and of inestmiable value, in the lessons of his own self-reliant 
life. To his State and Country, his career adds another to that roll 
of bright examples, which so gloriously illustrates the excellence of 
our free institutions, in producing the highest and purest forms of 
individual character and exalted public virtue. 





















,V %'^.^*/ ^^,'^^\/ %^^"*/ i 















.^-^^ 






T^ 

-^^o^ 









^^c 














\.^^ •;#Cr. \/ .•^'•. %,^^ :'Mm' S.'^- 



. o • 







